Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending and Mr. Herrick for his presentation. It is great to see Dr. McDonagh again. I am sorry she got delayed on the way in. I have a question for all three witnesses. I know Mr. Herrick is relatively new; his is a relatively recent appointment. I congratulate him on that. I am delighted to see him in the role. I relied heavily on many of his publications previously during the referendum campaign, so I put my bias out there in that regard. That was much appreciated. We had the National Disability Authority in here two weeks ago and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, last week. As a parent and a carer and in a family who has direct lived experience of disability in Ireland, our experience of it as a family is that it is really abject and suboptimal in so many ways. I was trying to get a sense from the NDA and from the Minister of State if they felt it was a crisis. The Minister of State certainly did not communicate to me any sense that it was a crisis and that we were outliers internationally. Certainly, from Mr. Herrick's initial findings around institutionalisation, congregation or, as I call it, warehousing, there is inappropriate warehousing of young adults in nursing homes in the greater Dublin areas. There are thousands of people who have been literally warehoused. Normally, when elderly parents pass away or go into crisis, suddenly you have a young adult with nowhere to go, or it could be someone with acquired brain injury. There is no accessible accommodation for them. Forgive me for the length of time it is taking me to frame the question but why are we outliers? Why is there no political will to vindicate the rights of disabled citizens here? What kind of legislative basis would the witnesses like to see? Do we need to have really clear socioeconomic rights for disabled citizens as they do in all other jurisdictions? The Minister for public expenditure and reform does not agree with that ideologically. He feels it would expose the State to costs. This was communicated to us quite clearly during the referendum campaigns on care and also by the advice furnished by the Attorney General to the Government on the wording of the care referendum. I know "care" is a paternalistic word but it is relevant to the conditions in which disabled citizens find themselves living. I am sorry about the long-winded question. I am just curious to know if the witnesses have any ideas around that. Is it an historical thing, is it a post-Catholic, post-colonial, shame-based culture, or is it a conservative idea that women and girls must bare the responsibility for infirmity and disability? What do the witnesses think? They can take their time.