Ms Mena Fitzpatrick:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today.

Much of our work, as Dr. Sinnott says, involves firefighting for our members on different issues that come up on a daily basis, whether it is making sure that people with guide dogs have proper access to services or, to use a local example that arose only last week, the National Transport Authority bringing out a document about transport which features the idea of having trains stop in Wicklow and passengers change over to another train. That is a massive change for anyone with a disability, including me, a blind person from County Wexford.

Our organisation tries to work on different committees to firefight for our members and we do so free of charge. By coming together and, as Dr. Sinnott says, through the collective working together, I have learned a lot from being in a DPRO. The more people join the DPROs and the more the State recognises the importance of DPROs under the CRPD, the better it will get. However, it is up to the committee, Senators and TDs, to listen to what we are saying today and the messages we are trying to get across and try to make sure the UNCRPD is used correctly and that we work together to try to make things better for all the individual groups involved.