Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Last Sunday was UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The disability community and disability activists are asking when the Government will adopt the optional protocol to the UNCRPD to make itself accountable and to ensure real equality for people with disabilities. This Thursday, a new alliance of disability groups will protest outside the Dáil between 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock. I encourage the Taoiseach and Government Ministers to go out and meet them. They are calling for the scrapping of the Government Green Paper on disability reform because they believe that the proposed reform completely fails to engage with the disability community or to understand the complex needs of the disability community in Ireland. I urge the Taoiseach to listen to what people say at that protest, to engage with them and to heed their call for the ratification of the optional protocol to the UNCRPD.

See this speech in context