Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence and Disability: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Mr. John Sherwin:
They are not being respected. There is no evidence of them being respected. Until relatively recently, large corporates were projecting that they would like to be accessible and they were promoting diversity, equality and inclusion. Of course, we all know that has been stripped back to a large degree over the past number of years. There is a certain amount of lip service paid to the issues and concerns we have, which is often included in presentations from larger corporates and would no doubt be presented to government in that way also. There is a real insight that disabled people have, based on their lived experience, that can expose that kind of bias, inaccuracy or lip service very quickly. It is critical, when government is engaging with large corporates on these topics, that it has disabled people on the team to help it see through the jargon and determine whether there is real implementation or real intent.
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