Tom Clonan (Independent)

I thank the witnesses. It is great to see Mr. Hennessy again. His story does not inspire me; it makes me angry and frustrated. Mr. Hennessy inspires me but his story is one of failure. He has been failed by an ableist State. This is an explicitly ableist Republic. I commend his patience in coming in here and speaking to people, some of whom represent Government parties that have failed you. Not only do they fail you, they are highly resistant to the idea that disabled citizens should have statutory socioeconomic rights. I note the complexities of being an entrepreneur and that distinction between employees and employers. Would he support our calls for disability allowance to be a universal, non-means-tested payment, decoupled completely from income and so on? Similarly, I raise carer's allowance. I do not want to frame disability in the context of caring, but very often, the two are almost inextricably linked.

Is Mr. Hammersley shocked at Ireland's status? We are the only jurisdiction in the European Union where there is no legislation giving socioeconomic rights to disabled citizens. We are the only jurisdiction. The Grundgesetz or the basic law in Germany is 75 years old. We are 75 or 50 years behind Germany in relation to disability rights. We are 30 years behind Britain - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Is this something that he communicates to the Commission and to the Council of Europe? Are we outliers in the European sense?

Again, I feel so angry when the countries that decouple supports from income are listed out, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechia, Germany and Spain. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We have had organisations such as the National Disability Authority in here and there is no sense of urgency or crisis with them. They think everything is fine. The launch of the national strategy on disability rights to which many of us received no invitation, interestingly, was 78,000 words approximately. The word "equity" appears once. Once. Does Mr. Hennessy have confidence in the Minister of State, Deputy Naughten, after this budget that actually increases poverty for disabled citizens? Also, in relation to some of the service providers and organisations, some of those actively campaigned for a "Yes" vote on the care referendum. In fairness, they were told by the Minister that if they were in receipt of State funding and if they did not canvass for a "Yes" vote they would have to explain themselves. Is there a way of incorporating more disabled persons organisations, DPOs, into that negotiation space? I am sorry for the long question but sometimes I am incensed by what we hear, especially in comparison with our neighbours and partners in Europe. We operate an apartheid system here where disabled citizens are excluded from health, education and the workplace. We have the lowest participation rate in the European Union, at around 30%, why is that?