Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As yesterday was International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I will focus on two separate issues relating to people with disabilities.

On the provision of personal assistants, there was an excellent presentation in the AV room earlier hosted by Deputy Ó Caoláin, whom I commend on all of his work, as Chair of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, for people with disabilities. I also commend the speakers who attended, particularly James Cawley and Shelly Gaynor. They talked about the importance of the personal assistance, PA, scheme that is in operation, how it must be implemented as part of the ratification of optional protocol, how important it is to differentiate between home care or home help hours and the PA system that needs to be in operation, and that we need 500,000 more hours to be able to do what needs to be done for the PA programme. They described the PA system as an extension of themselves and about the decision-making being left to them. I remembered Michael Corbett, who was a great advocate for the PA system, when he spoke about how the only true experts on disability are those people who have disabilities. The PA system allows people to live a full life and make their own decisions about where they want to go and what they want to do within society, which is important.

James and Shelly also discussed the transition from education to employment and the importance of having a PA system or PA supports in place for that. We need to legislate and invest in standardisation of the PA system. It resonated with me when Ms Gaynor stated that the PA system has been eroded over the years and, instead of people being given full-time PAs to enable them to get the best out of their lives, make their own decisions and implement those decisions, they are given 42 or 45 minutes a day, which is of no use whatsoever. Shelly asked what it is possible to do in 42 minutes and answered the question by saying, "Feck all". I have to agree with her on that. It is important to get that system up in place and provide the extra hours. It is also important that the Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is put in place because it will deal with some of the issues I have raised.