Mr. Peter Gohery:

I come before the committee as the national chairperson of Physical Impairment Ireland, a true DPO that does not exclude any physically impaired person from joining it.

Why is it that limited hearings are offered to DPOs at any fora, while non-disabled people, who claim to speak on our behalf, receive the most hearing time? It is great that this committee has invited a person from Australia to hear what is wrong and listen to the way the State has and continues to fail disabled people in Ireland. The State has failed in listening to disabled people explaining to it what is needed here. This shows how flawed the system is in a country that is supposedly awash with money. It is spent everywhere but where it is needed the most, from a disabled person's perspective.

Most engagements conducted by this State on behalf of disabled people are like box-ticking exercises and kicking the can down the road. Most DPOs are left hanging on by a thread, hoping that one day there will be inclusion and integration for all disabled people.

For more than a year, we in Physical Impairment Ireland have worked intensively to have disabled parking bays brought up to a standard that is acceptable for us. We were not looking for gold-standard treatment. We required something that we can use easily. Only three towns in my county of Galway have met that standard to date. People with mobility issues in Galway have been informed that we will have to wait for an extra grant to come through for more towns to be included. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, disabled parking bays were used for outdoor dining. We had a lot of people, especially in the hospitality services, shouting about how wonderful it was to see dining come back while few people, politicians included, complained about the loss of the disabled parking spaces.

In the past few weeks, we have complained about the lack of enforcement by traffic wardens and An Garda Síochána in relation to disability parking bays. When we phone some Garda stations, we are told that once a car becomes available, they will go and investigate the matter. Why do the gardaí need a car to check illegal parking? Can they not walk or use their bicycles to investigate these matters? From a Galway perspective, and I am sure it is remarkably similar in every other county in Ireland, under a freedom of information request it was revealed that in 2020 Galway City Council handed out thousands of parking fines. However, Galway county only issued 197 parking fines. Surely, questions must be asked. Someone is not doing his job properly.

We have complained on numerous occasions to Iarnród Éireann in respect of its priority seating policy for disabled people and their companions. Any able-bodied person can book online, and no questions are asked as to whether the person has a disability to allow him or her to book priority seating. When this happens and we are left standing for the duration of a train journey, we are advised it is a computer error. If it is an easy fix, then it should be fixed. No big deal.

Members of Physical Impairment Ireland had a meeting with the Minister of State with special responsibility for disability and her adviser. Unfortunately, we never got a response to our concerns and the critical issues we raised.

A few years back, a good scheme was introduced for able-bodied persons called the bike-to-work scheme, but there was no provision made for employed or unemployed disabled people. Those who could benefit the most are left aside, namely, disabled people.

A good friend of mine and I are known as above-knee amputees or, in medical terminology, AKAs. However, to this State we are the same. My friend is a right-knee amputee, whereas I am an left-knee amputee. My friend and colleague in Physical Impairment Ireland, requires adaptions to allow him to drive, whereas I do not need any adaption. That is some difference when it is explained clearly to the committee how able-bodied agencies and the State classify us.

A lot of our members in Physical Impairment Ireland and other physically-impaired people are petrified about making complaints to Departments and agencies of this State because we feel we will not get a fair hearing. A week ago, I spoke to a lovely lady on the phone regarding her application for disability allowance. She had been refused this grant. When she contacted the Department of Social Protection and asked a civil servant for an in-person appeal, she was laughed at and the phone call was terminated by the civil servant. The only way an apology was forthcoming from the Department of Social Protection was following a threat of going public and that the civil servant would be named on national radio.

One of our older members was verbally abused by a taxi driver who parked illegally in a disabled parking bay. When a member of the public came to our member's assistance, she was also verbally abused by the taxi driver. Our member refused to make a complaint to An Garda Síochána. He was afraid he would be followed home and he and his family would be attacked.

Many disability organisation and network meetings are held during working hours. DPO members who are lucky to be employed cannot afford to take time off work and most service providers are very reluctant to hold these meetings outside working hours. Most of these meetings seem to go round in circles and achieve nothing, other than the non-DPO attendees clocking up hours.

We posed questions regarding State funding for these service providers and their associates. We have been left in limbo and are still awaiting answers. It feels to us that it is like a nod-and-wink job, where only reports written by able-bodied service providers and their allies and not by disabled people are seen as being acceptable when it comes to reporting on disabled person's organisations in this State. This must stop immediately.

For ten years, I was refused a disability allowance and could not receive the invalidity pension. I was not disabled enough as per the Department of Social Protection. The disability allowance-blind pension was a mere €208 and invalidity pension was €213.50 a week at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The minimum offered to able-bodied people was €350 through the pandemic unemployment payment. The only conclusion one could come to from this was that disabled people were and must continue to be the third-class citizens of the State.