Dr. Aideen Hartney:

The NDA thanks the Chairman and the members of the joint committee for the opportunity to discuss today's topic. I am joined by Dr Rosalyn Tamming, who is our head of policy, research and public affairs.

The NDA provides independent and evidence-informed advice to the Government on policy and practice relevant to the lives of disabled people. We incorporate a Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, promoting the design of physical and digital environments that can be accessed, understood and used by everyone, regardless of age, size, ability or disability. The NDA has been a member of the steering group convened to monitor progress on the NDIS since its launch in 2017. We have prepared an annual independent assessment of progress on the strategy, informed by our research and engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including DPOs, individuals, family members and other relevant bodies. We have also published two reports on progress against a series of indicators designed to measure the impact of the strategy over its full lifetime. We are pleased the committee has found our reports useful in supporting its work to date. We suggest that the most recent assessment, covering the end of the strategy's lifetime, offers a sense of areas for focus in the development of a new CRPD implementation strategy.

Over the five years of the NDIS, much progress has been made by way of new legislation, policy and programmes relating to the rights of disabled people. Several pieces of legislation have been enacted or progressed, including the Irish Sign Language Act 2017, the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022 and the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022. However, progress under a number of actions has been slower than hoped, including the move away from congregated settings and the demonstration project on the provision of personalised budgets. There has been no agreement on the final action plan of the comprehensive employment strategy, which runs to the end of 2024, and there remain significant issues around the timely delivery of multidisciplinary disability services for both children and adults. Disabled people on the NDIS steering group, through the DSG, have indicated that even where some commitments are marked as having been delivered by Departments, this has not always translated into improved experiences in their day-to-day lives. They also point to continued challenges in building awareness and positive attitudes to disability across government and within society, in spite of a number of initiatives progressed in this regard.

Delay in the development of a CRPD strategy has resulted in a significant loss of momentum in delivery of improvements in the lives of persons with disabilities. There was no approach agreed as to how actions designated as incomplete or delayed might be progressed following the end of the NDIS. Equally, where progress has been made, we lack mechanisms for ongoing review and evaluation to establish the impact of such developments. The majority of disability consultative committees established to allow stakeholders to provide perspectives on progress under the strategy at departmental level are no longer meeting.

While the absence of a mechanism to drive delivery of specific actions is concerning, it should not be the only way of ensuring Departments deliver on obligations under the CRPD. With census 2022 figures showing that more than 21% of the Irish population reporting as having a disability to some or a great extent, it is clear disability cannot be considered the siloed responsibility of a single Department or an equality ground requiring only specialist responses. In keeping with the UN convention and the Disability Act 2005, all Departments and public bodies should be giving consideration to how their mainstream services and supports are disability-proofed and where they might need to introduce more tailored supports in the domains within their remit.

A number of activities are continuing. This year saw the publication of the action plan for the housing strategy for disabled people. We are expecting publication this month of the disability action plan for health and social services and the roadmap for children's disability services. The Department of Social Protection recently published its review of the reasonable accommodation fund, and reviews of other payments are under way or planned. In the NDA, we are finalising a code of practice on accessible public buildings. We also expect the national data equality strategy to be published this year.

We previously discussed with this committee how the Disability Act provides for sectoral plans, requiring Departments to set out and report against action plans to address the service and support needs of disabled members of the public. The renewal of sectoral plans could be a deliverable under a new CRPD implementation strategy to ensure the translation of high-level goals into the specifics of service delivery. Their development could also give Departments a clear roadmap to guide ongoing activity aside from commitments in a specific strategy.

The NDA recognises that work to develop the successor strategy was impacted due to unforeseen challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine. While these events were unprecedented, we may face similar challenges in future. We advise that the State should take measures to ensure such external shocks do not impact on the realisation of rights for disabled people. Meaningfully including disabled people in decision-making is one way in which to mitigate against this.

We recognise the recent work progressed by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to engage with various stakeholder groups, including DPOs, in consultation on key themes and processes relating to the implementation strategy. However, the responses to these efforts from the disabled community have shown that further work and time are required to ensure a genuinely co-produced strategy. This would include securing a shared understanding and collaborative approach to the strategic planning process, as well as negotiation around themes for inclusion in the content. We recognise the challenge in balancing these requirements against the desire for a strategy to fill the current gap, but we suggest the time is taken to achieve an instrument that has the buy-in of all stakeholders and has the best chance of achieving the ambition of the UN convention in an Irish context.

While the Department is leading the co-ordination of the process to develop a CRPD implementation strategy, there will be obligations and expectations for all Departments and their aegis bodies in the delivery of an inclusive society. The NDA hopes to be part of the processes to agree monitoring and reporting mechanisms that can ensure accountability for actions committed. We have offered advice on potential structures that might apply. We recognise that ministerial leadership of monitoring committees can be very powerful, but it will be important such structures are devised to allow maximum focus on collaborative solution-finding where challenges arise, rather than more linear reporting, and that Departments and agencies engage at an appropriately senior level. We suggest that considering mechanisms to foster and allow time for cross-departmental collaboration will be an important part of the process to develop the new strategy, as this was a key challenge during the lifetime of the NDIS and other equality strategies.

We also advise that committees like this one will have a role in providing oversight at government level. The coming weeks and months will see further work advanced to consult and engage with DPOs and other stakeholders to inform the UNCRPD implementation strategy. If this process is to reflect the goals of the convention, there should be a partnership approach between officials, DPOs and disabled people and this will take time to achieve. The NDA notes that the departmental team is fully aware of this and is working to consider approaches that will balance this requirement with the need to ensure continued momentum in realising the rights of disabled people. The NDA looks forward to supporting them and other Government colleagues in this endeavour. I thank members for their attention. I am happy to take any questions.