Dr. Robert Sinnott:

Apart from accessible communications, safe access to our environment is the single biggest issue at present. There is an avalanche coming at us. It is like whack-a-mole. We cannot deal with it. For instance, the National Transport Authority, NTA, had a so-called consultation on greenways across 22 counties. Who could get around that? We sent them our principles, which were duly ignored. The NTA is unaccountable in terms of its attitudes to the UNCRPD. Recently, Deputy Gino Kenny tabled a parliamentary question on our behalf to the Department of Transport asking in what way it is upholding the right of DPOs to be prioritised in consultations under the UNCRPD. The response was that the Department is waiting for guidance from the Department with responsibility for disabilities. Good grief, we will be waiting until the next century. This is what is happening.

Let us say there is a doctor at No. 83 South Great George's Street. That is a street that originally the NTA had in mind to pedestrianise. When a street is pedestrianised somehow, magically, cyclists become pedestrians. This is mad. Streets are not really pedestrianised. They are for pedestrians and cyclists. There is massive disability-washing going on whereby it is said that cycling is great for some people who are disabled. Visually-impaired people cannot see cyclists coming to get out of their way. There has to be 100% segregation between pedestrians and cyclists. In Amsterdam it is lethal around the train station for visually-impaired persons. There are not as many visually-impaired people on the streets in Amsterdam now. We already have an infrastructure that is based on kerbs. Most of the English-speaking world does. It is excellent and fantastic. This is being changed with the concept of shared spaces.

I will go back to the example of the doctor at No. 83 South Great George's Street and I have a reason for doing so. If I had a doctor's appointment there, I would need to be dropped as close as possible, be it by taxi, public transport or a blue badge vehicle. If possible, I would need to be dropped outside. If the street were to be totally pedestrianised, a taxi would leave me on Dame Street at the top of South Great George's Street. The doctor would be approximately 300 yd down to the right. This would not only affect visually-impaired people. It would also affect people with pulmonary disease. It would affect the 186,000 people who can find it difficult to walk for more than ten or 15 minutes.

Paragraph 9 of general comment 7 of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights refers to the sustainable development goals 2030. The year 2030 will have come and gone before the State gets around to consulting DPOs. I cannot explain enough that the NTA has not read general comment 7. By the looks of it, it has not read the UNCRPD either. There is no UNCRPD without Article 4.3. It will be very expensive to try to undo all of this. Members will realise all of this when they go into their dotage. As they get older, they will find they will not be able to get to that doctor at No. 83 George's Street. I cannot believe this has not been disability proofed. What is happening here is illegal under international law. It is absolutely detrimental to the life and limb of our members. It means they cannot leave their houses. They cannot be independent. It is a disgrace this is going on. It is an absolute scandal that this is allowed to be done.

The NTA has a transport user access group. It specifically asked what it calls representative organisations for people with disabilities to join. Two of them are service providers. They themselves say they are not DPOs. That is the attitude of the NTA. It has such contempt for the UNCRPD and the rights of disabled persons. It certainly does not want to hear from DPOs. The committee needs to change that. It has the legislative power to do so. It will not happen through the Department of Transport telling the NTA to be nice to disabled people. It needs legislation. It needs to be shown that nothing will happen unless it is properly disability-proofed with DPOs. That needs to be made mandatory for the NTA.