Mr. Peadar O'Dea:

When it comes to improving, say, employment, there needs to be more investment in accessibility in workplaces or funding for accessibility. Investment is not only tied in with employment but also answers the question about independent living. Both Houses of the Oireachtas, as far as I know, adopted a motion in 2019 put forward by Deputy Pringle, an Independent, calling for the establishment of a personal assistance service. In principle, therefore, the Oireachtas has already formally committed to this. It would be good to have legislation in the future to actually put that into practice, though, because a personal assistance service would take disabled people out of institutions. The former Ombudsman released a report in 2021 saying that there were hundreds if not thousands of young disabled people still trapped in institutions. He referred to that as wasted lives. Personal assistance would enable disabled people to start living independently and maybe to get a foothold on the employment ladder.

I will briefly go back to Deputy Ellis's points and questions about funding for the budget. It is essential that DPOs get funding. It is not enough just to consult us. Obviously, it would be a major step forward if we were consulted because we are not being consulted. On top of that, however, the unwritten expectation is that we have to do a lot of consultancy work for free, and that is just not appropriate on any level. We are experts in our field just by experience because many of us are disabled, so we all have that life experience on top of any academic or research experience we have additionally in our various roles. We are therefore approaching this professionally and we should be treated as professionals. It seems like an unwritten rule that, on the few occasions we are even allowed to engage with decision-makers, the expectation is that we cannot get some sort of remuneration or even a stipend for it, which is not acceptable. Yes, for the budget I would prioritise funding. There is also the funding lock, so, for instance, more established organisations, many of which are not actually DPOs, get funding because they already have a proven track record of projects to which they can lay claim. That immediately shuts out newer groups like Disability Power Ireland because we are recently established. We do not have a proven track record of funding because we cannot access it. For instance, we were locked out of the recent human rights funding IHREC released. I do not remember the formal title. I think it was the human rights scholarship. We were locked out of that because of limitations such as that. There needs to be funding from which new grassroots groups can actually benefit. Otherwise, we are just going around in circles and continuing to do voluntary work, which is not appropriate.