Mr. John Sherwin:

I have just a short comment in response to Deputy Murnane O'Connor. We are talking about discrimination against persons with disabilities. I would go a step further and say that, for example, the Government's own literature acknowledges that deaf people are marginalised by the State's policies, and I am pretty sure that is the same for disabled cohorts of people. The question is how we change that, and that, of course, needs a far more comprehensive answer than it would be possible to deliver at a meeting such as this. In a simple sense, however, how we start to change that is by involving persons with disabilities and DPOs at the core of everything. When there is an engagement, if the question is asked afterwards, "Was a DPO invited?", and the answer is "Yes, but it was not there", that is not enough. What you have to ask is, "Was a DPO involved?", and if the answer is "No", then the question is "Why not?" Starting to answer that question in a proactive way is at the core of meaningful engagement for DPOs. As for simply inviting people to make submissions they are under-resourced to do, we anticipate that if the State tries to live up to the UNCRPD and if every Department, State body and local government agency starts to make demands for feedback from DPOs, it will be quite impossible to deliver.

How does the State change the structure to make that possible? The whys of all this must be answered. If there is no DPO at the table, the Government needs to ask why and follow through to try to solve that problem.