Mr. John Sherwin:

It is early days for us, as it is for the committee. Other than some Internet research, we have not engaged with organisations to develop any kind of formal collaboration around this. It would be positive to create those international references, look to others and what they are learning and look to other organisations internationally to see what can be learned from them. The area is so broad that we are not going to do it all by ourselves.

From the deaf perspective, we are engaged with the World Federation of the Deaf and the European Union of the Deaf to follow their policy positions as they are developing from a European and global perspective. Equally, there is the European Disability Forum and other organisations that we need to look to in order to have our own opinions informed. I imagine that Government collaboration with other governments, in particular in the UK, in relation to how this should be dealt with would be very valuable.