Professor Eilionóir Flynn:

There is a lot we can do at the grass roots as well. Deputy Ó Murchú mentioned that when people are well connected in their communities that makes them well positioned to run for political office. Disabled people are well connected within the disability communities that they are part of, and they may be part of many other communities. The candidates we spoke to were disabled women and disabled queer people. They are part of feminist organisations and queer movements and they can draw on that support. What they felt overwhelmingly is that they did not get the amount of support they wanted or needed from the organisations that they were a part of, or that they were hoping would provide more support in terms of their identities, but also from the political parties. Some people specifically talked about running as Independents because they could not get the support they wanted from political parties in terms of meeting their access needs as a candidate. That is very disappointing. It is something we can work to fix within political party structures. I think about the work of local development officers within political parties, who can cast the net more widely about who in the community could be a good candidate and who is an important voice in the community that they would like to encourage to run for public office and to give them the support they need to achieve that goal.