Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I am proud to have been part of the development of the motion before us today. I give credit to the Regional Group, which has done massive work on the motion, especially to Deputy Canney, who has driven the work within the group, and to Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh for her work behind the scenes. Our motion speaks a lot of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Ireland has ratified. It is important, however, to put on record that Ireland still has not ratified the optional protocol that accompanies this convention. This optional protocol allows people to make complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in relation to complaints they have against the State. The State is currently preventing this.

Aontú members recently attended a protest outside Dáil Éireann that was organised by Physical Impairment Ireland. We credit Senator Tom Clonan and Councillor Gabe Cronnelly for their work on this issue. Some of the stories we heard were absolutely shocking and heartbreaking. In particular, one woman who spoke to us told us about the lobbying she did over a long time with the Department of Social Protection for support for a child she had with disabilities. Unfortunately and sadly, her child died. Afterwards, the Department swiftly came back to look for repayment of one week's worth of disability allowance. It can take months, if not years, of trying to get supports, yet within one week the Department responded to that family when it was in a heartbroken situation. It shows us, in many ways, the attitude of the Department to this. The State sees itself as an inclusive, open and welcoming State but that is not true. Many people in the State who have disabilities feel excluded by the State. Ireland has a poor record in employment for people with disabilities. In 2021, the OECD report confirmed that we as a country were not generally inclusive for employment of people with disabilities.

We have a population in which approximately 13.5% of society identifies as having a disability, according to the 2016 census. Only between 30% and 36% of these people are employed. It is a disgrace. No other sector of society experiences this level of exclusion and for no other sector of society would that be acceptable in any way. We use the words diversity, inclusion and equality as buzzwords regularly in this House but they are meaningless in a practical sense for a significant section of society. I would say they are probably the biggest section of society who are discriminated against in this country. I think of a young woman called Kifca McNamee from my own county who I worked with a lot over the last number of years. This young woman has a significant disability and at the start of Covid, she was hospitalised. When she wanted to go home, the HSE could not find any care for her. She spent a long time in the hospital and was then removed to a nursing home. She spent months and months in a nursing home with people two and three times her age, trying and battling to get somebody to care for her but the HSE was struggling to get that care. Thankfully, it managed to get the care. I am not faulting any of the management in the HSE in the local area because they struggled to fill those spaces, but even now, the situation is that Kifca goes perhaps 15 hours overnight without being able to go the bathroom or get a drink of water. People are living in towns and villages in homes across the country in that scenario in 2023. It is wrong and heartbreaking to see.

In a previous life, I worked with an organisation that makes vehicles accessible for people with disabilities. There are many barriers, such as a lack of on-street parking and a lack of parking bays outside public buildings which people can use. There are also financial barriers. The State is not providing simple solutions for people with disabilities to access public transportation, private cars or even to drive cars. The Minister identified a fractured departmental response to all of this, which must be pulled together. We cannot go on like this.

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