Mr. Padraic Moran:

I thank the Chair. I am delighted to be back in Leinster House to speak on issues that are so important. This all comes on the back of the "Prime Time" special, "Access all Areas", which came from Mr. Delaney. The committee will hear from him quite a lot. That was his brainchild. He approached Isabel Perceval in RTÉ. I pay tribute to what the guys in RTÉ did because it was very powerful. It did not focus on us all being poor, disabled people. It focused on how the system disables us in living our day-to-day lives, which committee members, as legislators, have the power to change, if the political will and appetite is there.

I am 39 years of age. I have cerebral palsy and am in a power chair. I have an assistance dog. For the benefit of those who are not present, she is on the floor behind me. Gail is an extension of me in that she helps me retrieve dropped items so I do not always have to get a human to help me, which is an awful lot better. I am one of the lucky ones. This is a statement I want the committee to remember: I am a minority of a minority who has a job. I have worked for Sky Ireland since 2014 as a service adviser and I worked for East Coast FM as a sports reporter but, as someone with a disability in Ireland, I am lucky to have a job. That comes down to the lack of supports that are there to encourage employers to employ people with disabilities.

Clearly, I am sitting in a power chair. This has been brought up at other committee meetings, but the HSE employs a company to do repairs to chairs. That company is horrendous. It takes months and months to get a repair. For example, I am just back from Canada after representing Ireland last month in a sport called boccia. My chair was broken by Air Canada, which it told me about straightaway. Air Canada is trying to pay for the damage to the chair. It contacted Fannin, the company, a couple of weeks ago but it still has not sent Air Canada a quote. That is more than three weeks ago. Air Canada is asking where the quote is and I say, "This is normal". I do not know what way the tendering process is done but just because a company is cheap does not make it good. This chair is my legs. If I do not have my legs, I cannot go to work. I cannot do anything. My employer is very good at understanding that but I should not have to say I cannot go somewhere because my chair is broken.

As I said, in 2014, when I started working for Sky, in the eyes of the State, and everyone laughs when I say this, I am cured. I do not have a disability anymore. I lost my medical card, my travel pass and my disability allowance because I am "cured" - this chair is a mirage and I should not be competing in the Paralympics. When I met Mr. Delaney in 2017, doing his advocacy work outside Leinster House, l told him about this. He got me into a super committee. As a result of the testimony at that, a three-year transition period was introduced but I did not even get that. For the love of God, your disability does not go away after three years. What most members probably do not realise is that having a disability incurs extra costs in terms of transport and using public transport, which does not work, or when lifts are broken and you have to get taxis. You find you get overcharged by wheelchair taxi drivers because they know you do not have another option. Since you are cured in the eyes of the State, that is a huge problem. That is something that needs to change. Your disability does not disappear after three years. Whoever came up with that concept needs a reality check. It is not acceptable to have people with disabilities in a panic that they will lose their supports. As legislators, members have the power to change that.

Mr. Delaney does amazing work as an advocate. He is the one who gets things done. If I ring the HSE, I do not get an answer. He makes one phone call and in ten minutes he comes back with an answer on matters such as my personal assistant hours. I was having an issue with that and could not get an answer from the HSE for five years. Mr. Delaney made one phone call and I then got an answer. That is part of the problem. There is no respect for people with disabilities. There is nobody in the Government with the actual lived experience.

A really good idea would be possibly having someone like Mr. Delaney as one of the Taoiseach's appointments to the Seanad. He has lived experience and knows what the system is about. We have quotas for encouraging female politicians and other minority groups to get involved in politics. In that context, I challenge every party, including those in the Government and the Opposition, to put in place a quota to get people with disabilities into politics. I genuinely thought about this. What would have been the point of doing that because nothing works? Governments promise things but they do not do anything. Oppositions will agree and they get stuff.

People with a disability, therefore, learn that they are nearly better off on the outside because it is really hard to change the system. In 2023, it is horrendous that as a society it takes RTÉ's "Prime Time" programme to get us into Leinster House and to be able to do this. It is really bad we have been forced to do this. It is bad that we have been forced to go out and say to the State that we need help and we cannot do this. I have flown all over the world as part of the Paralympics and I have been really lucky. Other countries are so much better. We should also be so much better because we have so much money in the economy. I know undertakings will be given today that things will be better, but I know when I wheel out that door that I will be forgotten about. As Ms Saoirse Smith said on "Prime Time", we are forgotten people of Ireland and this must change. I thank everyone.