Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

All memos going to the Government from Departments should be disability-proofed. We should start there and lead by example. There is no point in us going out to ask local authorities or transport groups if we do not do it ourselves in the Departments. All memos going to the Government should be disability-proofed. It is a simple step but it would mean there has been a thought process at the highest level in the Civil Service. This is something I would like to see.

The Disability Act was passed in 2005. It addresses what the Cathaoirleach spoke about with regard to having an inclusion officer. Perhaps some Departments and local authorities need to go back and look at what the Disability Act covers. Perhaps some Departments need to fund what it covers and put the position in situand advertise for it. I do not say this lightly but it is the fact of the matter.

The Cathaoirleach mentioned the sports capital grants. I welcome the work that the Ministers of State, Deputies Chambers and Byrne, have done on this. I would go one step further. It is fantastic that they have seen the need for biodiversity and disability inclusion. Biodiversity should not be a tick-the-box exercise of buying wildflower seed bombs online and throwing them around with everybody jumping up saying that is the job done. Getting a service level agreement from a disability organisation should not be a tick-the-box exercise to state it is on file to get the 25 or 50 points that are required. It should be clearly demonstrated as to what inclusion and participation in sport mean. The application in itself needs to show where a changing places facility might have gone in or where accommodation has been made available that might not have been there before.

At present I am struggling to find accommodation for New Directions and school leavers. Many of our sporting organisations with accommodation are not open until 7 p.m.. I need real tangible results. I do not need people to just tick the box. I do not need to hear there is a lovely walking track around a pitch and that next time they will go for the tarmac but at present a wheelchair cannot go around it. This is tokenism. We need to move beyond this. This is where an inclusion officer would make a difference. It is an inclusion officer in a local authority who understands what real inclusion means. It is the inclusion officer who is part of our rural development or urban development groups. This is what real inclusion is about. The sports capital grant is a big envelope of money that bring about a cultural and attitudinal change at every root and branch of society in our communities. This is where we can make a real change.

The Department and this committee have done a lot of work with the decision support services to give people back capacity.

They would always need to be seen to have support when, in fact, they had the capacity themselves, if people are afforded time to articulate their voice and have it heard. Time is sometimes the biggest thing we can give a person with a disability, as opposed to assuming they can or cannot make decisions for themselves. However, huge work has been done here on Decision Support Services. I pay tribute to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, because of the amount of legislation that went with it. I wish Áine Flynn the very best. A lot of good work went on there. We are making changes. However, there are simple changes suggesting that if the optional protocol were enacted in the morning, by implementing a few of those measures, it would not be as painful for all Departments as they might think.