Dr. Sarah Waters:

Before we launched the consultation and the Green Paper, we had engaged with a number of disability organisations and DPO's about the consultation process and how we would make it as accessible as possible. We took a lot of the feedback on board regarding having hybrid events and allowing people whose first language is Irish Sign Language to be able to do video submissions. We have easy-to-read versions, people can do video submissions and, as Mr. Hession, said, we have received some 120 submissions already through the website. However, most organisations will not be submitting anything until closer to the closing date.

Last week we had a consultation event with stakeholders. Some 50 people representing various groups and organisations and DPO's attended in-person and online. We had a number of good discussions and workshops, with one of the workshops online. Feedback from those will be part of our deliberations and consultation.

We have more events planned for November. On 9 November, a large public consultation event will take place in Dublin Castle. Registration is now open and we already have more than 100 people signed up. The event will feature presentations from international experts, from Indecon, which did the cost of disability report, and from the Department. There will also be workshops so that people can discuss the various aspects of the report and what they feel is working and not working.

We are also holding two events. As part of the consultation process, we surveyed people to ask them which regions would suit them best and Athlone and Cork came out on top. Approximately 12 or 13 people are already registered for each of those locations. The Athlone event will be on 23 November and the Cork event will be on 14 November. Again, all the information about those events is on the gov.ie page. We are open to holding more events if people want events to be held in other places. We are also meeting some DPOs that want to have meetings with us throughout November and December.