Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Self-advocacy and Women with Disabilities: Discussion

Ms Derval McDonagh:

I will address the point about language. I am sure the witnesses from Disabled Women Ireland and Ms Gjecaj will have a lot to add as well. Language is incredibly powerful. Sometimes at Inclusion Ireland, we get a bit of criticism because we continually challenge language. When there is so much wrong with the system, people can get frustrated by that because they ask why we are going after the words when they cannot get home support for ten hours or cannot move out of the house they are unhappy in. What we say is that we are going after both. It is the language and the systemic barriers. Language is something that sets the tone. It sets a direction of travel and our intention. For example, there is an opportunity with the EPSEN Act. Can we move on from the name of that Act? In our submission, we have called for it to be renamed the Inclusive Education Act. Ideally we should not need an inclusive education Act down the line because it should just be education and we should be inclusive. Step one is at least taking the term "special" out of it. That kind of language lets us off the hook. It is the special people over there who need something special and we better create some special system that those special people can be in as opposed to taking our real-life responsibilities seriously, which is that all children should be able to go to their local school, all schools should be accessible and welcoming, the red carpet should be rolled out and schools should have the resources they need to support every child and should be universally designed. Then within that, there will be children who need additional support. We need to rethink and reimagine what the school day looks like. Such children might need time in their own space moving in and out of mainstream classes. By continuing to call things "special" and "other", we are not taking our responsibilities seriously. Language is powerful and we need to get a group on it and get real. It is 2023 and we are still using that kind of terminology and we need to move on from it. We often get criticised around that but to us, that is really important. Everything we do at Inclusion Ireland is about accessible communication and having a shared language and understanding of the importance and value of human rights and having a lexicon for people who are disabled is something we need to move on from.