Ms Suzy Byrne:

We are contacted by the people directly, their family members or by other professionals and organisations. There are people in so-called mainstream provision who do not know how to adequately support somebody with disabilities. They come to us. Those people may be supporting people really well and may not require independent advocacy. Often, we can signpost people or work with somebody to indicate independently what they want to happen in a situation and support their rights to information. They have a right to know they can oppose or complain about the service they are receiving already, or the lack of service. That is the responsibility of everybody. There is a specific role for NAS but we also have to recognise there is a public sector duty on all services to support people with disabilities to have access to information.