Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing with Senator Ruane. I am honoured and delighted to second this important Bill and congratulate my colleague, Senator Dolan, for his work, with others, in bringing it before us. The Bill is to facilitate and enable people with disabilities to fully participate in their communities and do ordinary things in ordinary places, such as to be able to travel or go to the toilet and get changed in dignity. These are things that we take for granted. The Bill would make good on the promise of Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD.

All his life, Senator Dolan has pushed the boundaries and confines of what people deem "good enough" for people with disabilities. He contracted polio as a child and recalls wearing an ugly caliper, a special boot on his leg and being referred to as “the boy with the limp”. As a young person, he did not allow his physical disability to stop him from climbing Galtymore Mountain or running the local youth club. He never accepted less than full citizenship and full participation for himself, and he has never accepted less for people with disabilities. For him, there are no limits or barriers that cannot be broken down or broken through. Like Senator Dolan, the Bill is high minded, practical and borne of lived experience. It is about very basic things such as a changing room for people who need it which is properly kitted out with hoists in order that people can have the dignity of cleanliness as they go about their shopping, visit to a hospital or whatever it is they want to do. Shockingly, yesterday we heard that there are only 11 such changing rooms nationally. They are not even provided in hospitals where children with disabilities and life-limiting conditions spend much of their lives. The Bill proposes that all new builds have such a changing room. It was great to hear Senator Dolan list the locations where there are plans to put such facilities in place, but we badly need to catch up.

The Bill is about children being able to play together. In London in the 1990s I was lucky enough to be a trustee of the Markfield project, an integrated play project for people with disabilities, their siblings, neighbours and friends which was brought about in order that all those children and mine could play together. There was an equal play playground down the road. If it could be done in London in the 1990s, we can do it today. Closer to home, at the briefing yesterday in the audiovisual room a women named Lynn spoke movingly about the South Beach playground in Greystones and the sheer joy of her daughters, Ellie and Daisy, at being able to play together side by side for the first time in a public space and what that meant to them. The Bill is about children with disabilities being able to playing with other children without being isolated, segregated or ostracised and all the horrific consequences of that as Senator Dolan alluded to with reference to the Holocaust.

I can speak with great authority about private buses as I travel by Aircoach to Dublin each week. These private buses are not accessible, as I learned at first hand when I had a protracted calf strain. I was not even using a wheelchair. Without access to such transport services, people are prisoners in their homes.

The Bill addresses advocacy by ensuring there are personal advocates to support people with disabilities. This measure was provided for in the Citizens Information Act 2007 and, ten years later, it was part and parcel of my Adult Safeguarding Bill 2017. However, it has not been implemented. The Bill is about making it a reality. All members of all political parties agree that it is right to have access to independent advocacy, but we do not have it. Let us bring it on. I am delighted to second the Bill. With the leadership of Senator Dolan, we shall overcome.