Ms Paula Soraghan:

I thank the Senator for her question. ILMI is a national campaigning cross-impairment disabled organisation. The youth collective is only one part of that, which focuses on one particular group of people. Within the wider DPO space in ILMI, we have run a number of online spaces to help to inform policy decisions that affect the lives of disabled people, including young disabled people. For example, earlier this year, we ran a number of consultation spaces on employment. Linked in with that was education, the importance of raising expectations for education and employment, and the need to start very young in terms of the paradigm shift that is needed regarding disability. We are campaigning to shift disability from being seen as a personal tragedy to addressing it as a social and political issue. In line with that is ensuring any supports that disabled young people have within education are appropriate to their needs. At the end of the day, 100 people could have the same impairment label, but it would not affect any two of them in the same way. Impairment is an individual experience. Disability is very much a political issue that affects many people. It is more than likely that it will affect everyone in some way, shape or form, in some aspect of their lives, at some point. We need to look at educational supports through a holistic approach. We need to invest in and resource personal assistance so that it is a right. Legislation should be passed to ensure that every disabled person who needs a personal assistant, including young disabled people, has the right to one.

As I said in the opening statement, it is about rephrasing. Instead of referring to a special needs assistant, the language should be changed to make it more empowering and inclusive, and the term "personal assistant support" should be used within the education system. The issue with the current model at the moment is that the supports that young disabled people receive within education do not follow them outside of school or when they leave college. That is an issue because it can limit people's opportunities and expectations. Supports should not just exist in a vacuum. For us, independent living is all about people doing everything themselves and having the choice, control and self-determination to make decisions and choices in their lives in order that they can reach their full potential. Regardless of what a person's impairment is and how it affects him or her, he or she must be the one making the decisions for his or her life, with the appropriate supports needed, whether that is a personal assistant service or whatever the case may be. It is about changing that narrative and having a more holistic approach within it.

I will go back to how ILMI and the youth collective resourced spaces and supported people. As I said, we worked previously with the National Disability Authority on the Ask Me guidelines and the importance of consulting young disabled people. We have previously worked with Hub na nÓg on the participation of young disabled people and children within education. We have run a number of social spaces during the Covid pandemic. We ran a film club, the discussions of which led to the idea of the youth collective. We realised that there was a gap and that there was no space on a cross-impairment basis for young disabled people to connect. Some people were falling through the cracks. Although it is a massive improvement that a lot more young disabled people are accessing mainstream education, because DPOs still are not resourced properly and are still not very well known, we are finding that a lot of people are falling through the cracks. They do not know who we are or what we do. There needs to be a link between the schools and the DPOs in order for disability equality training to be delivered by DPOs and disabled people through a social-model lens to inform young disabled people of our role, how important it is and how we can support them. That would mean that their expectations are raised. They will realise that they do not have to accept limitations that are put on them because they might have a certain impairment label. For us it is not about the impairment label. Yes, the label is there and obviously it is a factor, and we know personally how to manage it. We are the experts on our own lives in that regard, but it is very much about how we can remove the barriers and work together in collaboration with other stakeholders to make society inclusive for everybody. I refer not just to physical barriers, but also to addressing ableism and ableist attitudes that can impede the participation of young disabled people and children in society.