Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Smith, Mr. O'Shea and the Minister of State for a very wide-ranging engagement. I also thank our members. It is they and their dedication to our job in hand that have made the committee so meaningful in how we do business. From listening to Minister of State, the members and the proceedings, one word comes up every week and that is "attitude". Societal change in attitude is needed in how we look after people with disabilities. The Minister of State made the point that the Disabilities Act was the piggy bank of other Departments because they were raiding it if money was short in other sectors. This is probably the best way of putting it.

We have a lot of passion at our meetings with regard to agencies or people not fulfilling their role in how they look after people with disabilities or how it works out. Throughout the world climate change is a major issue. It is being discussed at every level. There is a climate change officer in every local authority. There is no officer for people with disabilities. At the beginning of the meeting the Minister of State mentioned that one fifth of people are living with a disability. There should be joined-up thinking with a port of call and a person in each public body. The Minister of State wrote a letter to all Departments regarding disability-proofing their budgets. Is every unit of the State disability-proofing its policy or changes?

The sports capital grants came out in the summer. The criteria were slightly changed and extra points were given if the club or organisation had a biodiversity element to it. I know that scheme looks at disability and whether we are really targeting people with a disability. This is probably the best example of what has been done over the past ten or 15 years in terms of getting sporting organisations to facilitate and look for people with disabilities. The point I am making is that some schemes now have criteria on climate change that must be met. Every scheme coming from the Government and the public purse must be disability-proofed. This is a major juggernaut that we are trying to change.

Every week we listen to people with lived experience and some of the very harrowing tales of families. We also meet people in our various constituencies. We need to change the attitude and have a culture change in terms of how people with a disability are viewed and accommodated in our society. This goes for a lot of the western world also. Some of the documents coming from the Departments a short time ago did not really put thought into people with fundamental disabilities. Going back to some of the points that were made during the meeting, the State was almost checking whether a disability was still there. There is this kind of attitude.

I compliment the Minister of State and the officials for their work. As the Minister of State has said, moving to the new Department has been a game changer in a short period of time and will be in the long term also because it will deal with equality. We must continually bang the drum here at this committee to make sure we give a voice to people who really need it. The attitude throughout the sector needs to be changed. There needs to be a sense from every unit of the State that we are looking at accommodating people with a disability on whatever challenges they have. There is the simple issue of the toilet being closed. This would not happen for the vast majority of people. It is okay that we do our best for people with disabilities. We do not need to have the red carpet all of the time. All we want is equality and to ensure they have the same as everybody else. I thank the Minister of State. I thank the secretariat team who do amazing work on our behalf. We are as good as the team behind us in preparing the work.