Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 October 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Ensuring Inclusive Local and EU Elections: Discussion

Mr. John Dolan:

One of the main things that we have been involved in, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is report issue 6 from the EDF last year, which focused on human rights. That is a good starting point. Mr. O'Leary will have the opportunity to meet one of the major writers of that tomorrow, Alejandro. I cannot think of his family name. He is a lovely Spanish man. That is a start.

I have a couple of points. Deputy Ellis talked about how we reach out to people, whether local authorities or health authorities. Our network of organisations and groups is one pond that we can trawl through. I wanted to make a couple of other points. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act should be a really strong driver for us. We have advertisements in Irish and English on the television saying that every single person has capacity. That goes for other constituencies, too. It is about how people get to it and how one facilitates it.

I love the idea of voting in a democracy as a public act. I do not like the idea that it is done in a corner in one's own home. I think there is great symbolism to it and symbols are powerful things. We saw that with the first election in the free Republic of South Africa. We all remember the woman in the wheelchair being brought to vote. To see somebody who is very disabled in a public space, voting, is arresting and is a message to other people. That should be what we want to ensure is a real choice for people. We run an event every year called Make Way Day. It struck me, listening to this conversation, that there may be a need for a make way election day. Between different stakeholders, including us here and others, we could actually try to come up with a focus on getting people to be able to go out and make their vote. They are the couple of points I would like to make at this stage.