Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the evidence they provided. I have a number of questions. The first is to the witnesses from Mental Health Reform. Ms McGuigan started by saying that she is a mam, which is a good way to start and an indication of how personal the story is to her. As part of the maternity strategy, we are supposed to be employing more perinatal psychiatrists. There is an absolute dearth of mental health help for pregnant women and new mothers. From Ms McGuigan's own experience, she might be able to tell us about how important that kind of intervention is because it is an area that is very often overlooked. We tend to refer to it as the after baby blues but it is not that; it is a form of depression and is something that needs to be addressed. In her statement, she asked the committee to get the Department to put in place a timeframe for the review of A Vision for Change. We all know that the recommendations in A Vision for Change have not been implemented. Ms McGuigan refers to the fact that they are in the confidence-and-supply agreement but so are a great many other things that are not happening. If Ms McGuigan was to guide those discussions in terms of how the review might take place, what are we looking for? A Vision for Change is 11 years old so it is a ten-year strategy that is already a year out of date. If we were going to try to make up that ground, does Ms McGuigan have any suggestions that might guide those discussions?

I am interested to know the view of all our guests on the delay in ratifying the UNCRPD and their view of the potential adverse effects of the delay in implementing European disability legislation such as the European Accessibility Act, which is under negotiation. I am conscious we are already behind. We have a huge amount of ground to make up. While we have fallen behind, the European Union is moving ahead.

We are going to need to play a significant amount of catch-up. If the accessibility Act is passed, do the witnesses believe we are prepared for its requirements? What impact will delaying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, have on that?

The European disability strategy 2010 to 2020 seeks to ensure the equal participation in life of all citizens with disabilities, the same as any other citizen. How are we going to shape up in respect of achieving the goals of this strategy? Can we do so without ratifying the UNCRPD? Ms O'Meara was saying that there is a lot we can do. Do the witnesses think that not ratifying the UNCRPD is a handy excuse for doing nothing? Is there scope for us to do much that we are not doing? Can the witnesses point us in the right direction? When we ask questions, we are often told that after we ratify a convention it will be like turning on a tap. I suspect it will not be like that. Judging by the witnesses' nods, they have the same suspicion.