Dr. Iris Elliott:

On the review of the national disability inclusion strategy and the successor strategy, we have been very proactive in engaging with the Department. The national disability inclusion strategy ran out years ago. Our view is that it was already very limited and not sufficient to implement the CRPD or other international standards. To assist the Department, we sent it through a compilation of all recommendations and concluding observations from the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the EU reviews of Ireland because the approach we have taken as the independent monitoring mechanism is always to raise issues around disability rights in whatever fora we are. There is a whole body of assessment by human rights and equality bodies around the inadequacies of Ireland’s performance around disability rights. We shared that with the Department in March 2024. We have repeatedly attempted to engage with it on the matter. We have repeatedly asked for updates regarding the progress on the national disability strategy. We have had verbal briefings and draft documents, and we have provided feedback on those, raising quick, significant concerns about what has been proposed. I am conscious it has not been published yet, so we will wait to see the final text of it. We always provide a comment on the equality strategies around where we think they are inadequate or adequate. As the independent monitoring mechanism, we also state our expectations about our participation in the oversight structures and we have requested observer status as the independent monitoring mechanism. We were still exchanging correspondence as of last Friday to respond to the Department’s view on it. I do not think we can say anything more than that.

In summary, we have been very proactive. We have tried to assist and it has been a relatively frustrating and limited process. However, this would not be uncommon. I appreciate the committee will be very focused on the national disability strategy, but we also do not have a national women and girls’ strategy, we only just received an LGBTIQ strategy, the NTRIS only came out at the start of this year and there is no sign of the migrant integration strategy. Given intersectionality is a core component of the CRPD, that is extremely worrying. I note this committee has looked previously at Article 31 on data collection and statistics. We are still waiting for the equality data strategy as well, although that was substantially advanced a year ago. I express that we have tried to support the Department but it has been a very difficult and frustrating process.