Ms Paula Soraghan:

I thank the Chair. Independent Living Movement Ireland is a cross-impairment national disabled persons' organisation. Our vision is an Ireland where disabled persons have freedom, choice and control over all aspects of their lives and can fully participate in an inclusive society as equals. Central to the way we work is to ensure policy decisions that impact on the lives of disabled people be directly informed by those whose lives are directly affected. Our philosophy can be summed up as "Nothing about us without us!" and "Rights not charity". Our vision is an Ireland where disabled persons have freedom, choice and control over all aspects of their lives and can fully participate in an inclusive society as equals.

ILMI, as a grassroots DPO, has many artists in its membership. As a DPO we have created spaces and workshops locally and nationally in discussing and developing disability arts. Most recently, we have worked with the No Magic Pill production to provide a strong disability equality lens to the development of this groundbreaking drama, which has disabled actors at the forefront of a play about disabled lives. ILMI as an organisation was directly involved in the multiple award-winning play No Magic Pill, which broke new ground in disability arts in Ireland. ILMI want to speak to this committee about the development of local and community arts not only from the perspective of disabled people as audience members, but as art creators, producers, directors and technical crew. ILMI also work from the arts movement concept of disability art, which is art made by disabled artists which reflects the lived experience of disability.

At its core, the UNCRPD is framed through an understanding of disability that is known as the social model of disability. From ILMI’s perspective, it is vital that there is a clear and full understanding of what the social model of disability is and how it should inform future discussions on policy development and improvement and policy implementation, including discussions on developing and supporting local and community art. The social model looks at how society is structured and how it disables people. It is not based on a person’s impairment, but focused on the barriers that exist in terms of attitudes, policy development, access or lack of supports that prevent people from participating in society as equals with choice and control over their own lives. In this model it is society that disables people from achieving their hopes and dreams, not a person’s impairment. The social model informs all aspects of the work of ILMI. Where disabled people are referred to in our presentation to the committee, this should be understood to include all disabled people, including those with learning difficulties, people experiencing emotional distress and physical and sensory impairments.

Ireland ratified the UNCRPD in 2018 and under this there are a number of articles with relevance to the development of local community arts, specifically Article 30 which concerns "Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport". Article 30 relates to the disabled people accessing arts and culture, but also to removing barriers to the participation of disabled artists in the creation of art and management of local arts centres. ILMI believes any development of policy relating to the inclusion of disabled people in local and community arts needs to start with an understanding of the social model of disability by national, regional and local arts mainstream resources.

In framing disability as how attitudes, systems, legislation and policies disable the participation of people with impairments, we can begin to design systems that remove these disabling barriers and look to invest in structures and supports that promote effective cultural inclusion for and with disabled people - no arts about us without us. Through a social-model lens and informed by the UNCRPD, ILMI as a cross-impairment DPO welcomes the opportunity to inform discussions of community and local arts from a disability equality perspective. I will now pass over to my colleague, Mr. Kearns, who will talk about the role of DPOs in the development of local art strategies.