Mr. Gary McCabe:

I thank Ellen. I will tell you about why the UNCRPD is important to us, the work we do in creating independent living and our work in our communities to be inclusive. Groups and organisations ask to hear our voices and our choices. To name a few of our recent focus groups, we have worked with the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, on easy access to its website and with the Irish Banking Culture Board on financial inclusion. We also raise issues in the midlands conversation group. We have invited local county councillors to speak about these issues too. For example, one councillor came to a meeting to speak about housing in Offaly. One of our members is on the housing disability steering group.

We have led public sector duty training in Citizens Information Service offices. We are involved each year in “Make Way Day” to work on accessibility in our towns.

That is with another organisation called Offaly Disability Equality Network, ODEN, and we have a "Make Way Day" every month on Fridays. We have presented to Offaly County Council on disability awareness. We have worked with ODEN, a cross-disability group, and the youth council on disability awareness projects.

We have invited the community to join us for a meeting every year where we present on the CRPD. We ask people to pick the top three rights and then have a conversation about our choices.

To live independently we believe that the top issues are: providing for the therapy needs of disabled children; employment supports; availability of transport; access to housing; access to healthcare; personal assistant support to live our lives in the community; personalised budgets; and easy to read information. I thank the committee for its co-operation and for inviting us to this lovely place. We were delighted to be picked and, "Let's go, Government."