Dr. Joanne McCarthy:

I will start. I thank the Vice Chairman and members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to talk to them about this really important issue. All three of us here are of the view that if the committee can unlock this, it will do a lot to achieve equality for people with disabilities and really change how people with disabilities experience their community services, be they disability-specific or mainstream. We submitted a paper for the committee's consideration. I will not talk to that as it is quite long so I will just pull out some salient points from it. We can come back to anything members wish to address. We also will take the opportunity to notice how timely it is for this to be brought to the committee in light of the recent ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, which came into force in Ireland on 19 April. It is really timely that we are beginning to consider this as an issue.

We also acknowledge the work of the National Women's Council of Ireland in this area. I do not think the experience of disability is hugely different to that experienced in terms of gender proofing. While there might be some specifics, the committee has really broken the back of much thinking on this and bringing that to bear on disability would be really helpful. In respect of the key learnings from this work and the work of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and others, we want to highlight that any disability proofing of policies or budgets needs to involve different thinking. It is not systemic thinking about one Department and what it does. We would perceive it as something that crosses Departments. We need to think very differently when it comes to people with disabilities. They do not live in silos or just one Department and do not just receive one programme or service. With that in mind, we would say that at the outset, if one is seeking to disability proof in general, one needs to extend across areas. This includes how Departments apply expenditure and how Government first and then public bodies make decisions on expenditure. It includes the information they use to inform what decisions they make, for example, how they are going to use their money and more importantly, that they do not just use this in terms of a systematic look in which they go programme by programme but use a systemic look in which they look across the decisions that any one Department will make and,, more importantly, across how one Department's decision has an impact on other decisions made by other Departments. If one takes a step back to consider how budgetary or policy decisions are experienced by people with disabilities, it really helps to understand the jerkiness that can happen if one just engages in systematic thinking.

Moreover, any disability proofing must use disaggregated data. To begin to introduce disability proofing without understanding what data is and is not at hand and what data we want to acquire would be hugely problematic. We also think that good-quality and reliable objectives need to govern any decision one might make around how one introduces disability proofing. This includes very strong and measurable key performance indicators, outputs and outcome indicators. I know this sounds quite challenging when it comes to disability. I am sure the committee has heard us and other people in our sector saying there is definitely a data deficit in terms of disability. As some significant work has been happening around key performance indicators and likewise for the national disability strategy implementation group and the value for money process in terms of disability-specific health-related information, there is stuff there upon which we can build.

We know that when these measures are not applied, there can be very poor outcomes in terms of how people with disabilities experience or are affected by policies or procedures. I will give one example. Rebuilding Ireland places a huge emphasis on addressing the social housing needs of the general population in Ireland. We also know that the rental strategy never once touched on or addressed the housing needs of people with disabilities as part of that. We also know that this was despite the fact that in 2010, a report by the Housing Agency specifically highlighted the very specific challenges faced by people we support in terms of accessing housing. This was despite the fact that we have a national housing strategy for people with disabilities. There is no stitching between the generic housing plans and this strategy, despite the impending ratification of the UNCRPD. One might not necessarily think first and foremost that people with disabilities are one's target audience and one might make budgetary decisions or plan policies without understanding their wider impact on such people. I note, however, that they cross all areas in Ireland and, at 13% of the population, are everywhere. That is an example of why it is important that we are grappling with this issue.

We welcome that this is now on the table. However, we also know that we now have a right. We actually have to do this. There is now a need for us to introduce disability proofing in policy and legislation. Under the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, all public bodies must take proactive measures to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities first and foremost. They must also promote equality and protect the human rights of people with disabilities. Even if the committee had not been proactive in beginning to look at how to begin to disability proof, we know there are other pressures that are coming on board in terms of influencing and having an expectation around how policies, procedures and budgets are made with regard to people with disabilities.

We also know that the ratification of the UNCRPD will also pose challenges and ask questions about how we make budgetary decisions and how we begin to plan policies. To return to the point, questions will not be asked in a systematic way but in a systemic way. One will not be told that the answer to our responsibility in respect of the UNCRPD with regard to health will be found only in the Department of Health. If one looks at each article, one will see the interface and interplay that happens across Departments in terms of the responsibility of Departments to answer the need in question. For example, under health, it will not just be the Department of Health that must respond to what is being asked of it in the context of Article 25 of the UNCRPD. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection will also have to respond and think differently about how it will achieve what is being asked of it.

There are significant opportunities and changes taking place, most notably with this committee. The Joint Committees on Health and Employment Affairs and Social Protection have made a really interesting move recently whereby they have indicated that the joint committees will come together to look at how to address the employment and activation issues faced by people with disabilities. That is very significant. The committees are looking at the competing barriers that are being put in place by individual siloed thinking in Departments and are beginning to look at how they can work together to unlock that and offer people with disabilities more seamless access to employment activation and so on. That is the expectation.

We are not alone in this. As the EU has also ratified the UNCRPD, it is also grappling with the need to disability proof its decisions and budgets. We can see some of that coming out in some of its programme work and it is beginning to identify how it needs to include people with disabilities or the needs of people with disabilities in how it applies its budgets.

When DFI conducts budget analyses, we use a systematic approach. One of the biggest examples of where it became very obvious to us that people with disabilities were inappropriately carrying the burden of the recession was in the context of budget 2012. If members recall, disability allowance for people under the age of 18 was stopped and then there were staged payments for those aged 18 to 25. Other groups were also affected by changes in respect of medical card access and the threshold cut-off point and in the context of educational supports for third level and further education for people with disabilities. When we added up the impact of all of these cuts across Departments, we began to see clearly that the a lack of disability proofing in respect of the budget meant that people with disabilities were carrying a significant burden. This group was already significantly marginalised in Irish society.

We greatly welcome the opportunity to come here today to discuss this matter. The committee asked if we wanted to make recommendations about the budget. We are of the view that we will get other opportunities to do so between now and the introduction of budget 2019. For today, we are happy to highlight the importance of and focus on disability proofing generally. We are happy to answer any questions.