Mr. John Dolan:

I hope I did not say earlier that legislation makes no difference. I was referring to legislation alone and safeguards in the legislation, and I then moved to practical measures to support people in their daily living to be able to live better. I mentioned four articles from the UN convention and said three of them use the word "enjoyment", meaning the right to feel the warmth of the rights in your daily life, while the other article refers to respect. It is about being able to see and feel the effect of having these rights.

I do not know what I can add to that other than that I keep coming back to the question of what has changed in the daily lives of people whereby somebody is able, in this committee or anywhere else, to make the points the Senator made, because they are parts of people's lives.

I will stick with that issue for the moment. I take the view that Ireland wants to do the right thing. It goes about it and gets sidelined politically on a more regular basis than I would wish in putting through the things that make differences to people's lives. We should not underestimate what people think and feel when there is nobody else around and when they have nothing productive and useful to be doing in their lives, and what they feel about what it is to be living or not living. That is a real issue. I am aware that the Cathaoirleach is pushing me for time but I say that the people who are not disabled and do not have a sense of the day-to-day grind of it will find it very hard to understand what that is like for somebody. When I listen back to what Rosaleen McDonagh had to say, I think she was getting to the heart of that in this discussion.