Mr. Owen Collumb:

I will go back to Senator Higgins's question about the learning from the whole situation around independent living and personal assistance. The learning that I have taken from it is how capable disabled people become when they are given the resources and the personal assistance service to live a life. Some of the most capable people I know have been people with disabilities. The people who have gone before me have inspired me. Otherwise, I would not have made the huge step from institutional care to living in the community. It was people with disabilities who inspired me to take that step. That is the real learning. The results should say that those people have made society better for us all and especially in Ireland. It is people being out and about, going to work, and normalising it in society. It is normal to meet an individual with a disability in the workplace now where it was not so normal years ago when it did not come so easily to us. We could not get on buses to travel. We could not get to the work places that were accessible. Such change has come from us lobbying politicians and the HSE. It came from good people with good intentions to make society more equal for everyone. If we stand side by side to progress we realise that society is not easy for people with disability to engage in. There is a huge range of issues still to iron out including direct payments, getting assistance services, assistive technology to include people with disabilities in the workplace, in education and in normal activities in their lives, so that a child who is born with a disability in Ireland today grows up with aspirations of leaving home, going to college, having a family and having a so-called "normal" life. That can be achieved by having a personal assistance package. Something that small can be life changing. The alternative is that people stay at home, depend on elderly parents, and become institutionalised when their parents can no longer look after them. There is a choice there between A or B in some situations. As long as we are in a position to lobby and have other people on our side to progress independent living, personalised budgets, accessible home environments and accessible work environments, we will make huge changes and advances for everyone. I have a disability. Ms Weldon has a disability. It could be a reality for Mr. Cawley, for example, or any one of his family members going forward. I will leave it on that note. It is profound that we are all on the same page in trying to achieve something valuable here.