Mr. Ciar?n Delaney:

In relation to what Niamh said, I am happy to put a paper together for the committee as to what I just covered. The State Examinations Commission emphasised that it does not want to give an advantage, but one thing Niamh did not mention is that her ten minutes had to incorporate her waiting for a scribe to write down her thoughts. Nobody has factored that in. Nobody has looked at this. I am like a scratched record, for those who remember 45 records. That is going back some time. The committee should get the State Examinations Commission in here, bring in Niamh and others who use Féach, and ask the questions instead of letting them hide away in Athlone. It was ten minutes for me in college as well. No one knows where the ten minutes comes from. Nobody knows the provenance of it.

I was talking to Ms Smith about the buses. There is a very simple solution there. With the Chair's indulgence, I would like to ask Saoirse to explain that when I finish. I am not going to take credit for her brilliant idea about how to solve the issue of accessibility on buses. It is easy-peasy. I was once in a forum with somebody from the NTA. I basically did a Jeremy Paxman. I kept on asking the same question about accessible services using that section. What I was told is that they would rather have inaccessible services than nothing at all in rural areas. That is a direct quote. I am not going to say who or where because that would not be fair to that person or the entity concerned.

Mr. Nelson mentioned one-bed apartments. With the greatest respect, that is not much good.

If a person needs a carer, he or she needs a two-bedroom apartment because obviously if it is a full-time carer, the need must be put where the person is going.

With regard to Irish Sign Language, ISL, interpretation, I will mention one thing in relation to audio description - get the new Media Commission in. At this moment, the requirement for RTÉ 1 and RTÉ 2 is for ISL to have 5% per day. For RTÉ Junior it is 4%, for Virgin Media it is 2% and for Oireachtas TV it is 6%. I do not have the figures for audio description because as I told members previously, there is no signal.

I would implore members to remember one thing about the optional protocol. The committee has disabled persons organisations, DPOs, coming in here. Not everybody is a member of a DPO. The National Disability Authority, NDA, was asked what was needed for a DPO. Three people form a DPO. Not all of us are comfortable being involved in DPOs because if your face does not fit, you are excluded. AsIAm does not represent everybody in the autism community. It is not a DPO. People need to please get that through their skulls. It is one of the most frustrating things as an autistic person. It drives me absolutely berserk. People agree to go along, basically.

I was asked by Niamh's mother Sinéad to say that Niamh had to memorise her speech today because her level of Braille is so poor because of the lack of supports she has received. That is something that needs to be addressed. When the "Prime Time" programme went out on RTÉ and the studio piece went on, my four colleagues here will attest that the producers wanted to mic me up to go into the studio in the middle of it. I said "No" and that it would be car crash television, but everybody in the country would be cheering for me about what I was going to say.

Norma Foley needs to be brought in and asked very forcefully what the hell she is actually doing for the sector, and stop hiding behind Josepha Madigan and Anne Rabbitte because I do not see anything. She is the Minister for Education. The buck stops with her. That is it in a nutshell. I have to acknowledge one person, by the way, and that is Mr. Noel Byrne, one of Anne Rabbitte's team. On the Saturday before a bank holiday weekend, Noel Byrne was on to me at 8.45 a.m. and spent the guts of an hour making sure everything was right for Niamh as much as we could. That says something for Noel and also Adrian McLouglin. I am going to get killed for what I am going to say next, which is that I would not be able to do any of this but for the support of my wonderful wife, Eileen. Without Eileen, I would not be able to do a fraction of that. I am sorry, Eileen, I wanted to put that on the public record.