Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will begin my contribution by paying particular tribute to two people in the room. I first pay tribute to the Minister of State for her extraordinary courage since the first day she was appointed a Minister of State in this area. I have always believed she should be a full Cabinet Minister and disability should be a full Cabinet Ministry but she has demonstrated that no matter what it was, she was going to confront it and ensure services have been delivered. I know she was instrumental in ensuring this committee was delivered. I want to pay enormous tribute to my colleague, Senator Micheál Carrigy. He has shown great courage from the very beginning to say this committee is needed, we need to talk about the issues and we need to formulate it.At each point he has chastised us, as a parliamentary party, encouraged us and talked. A week does not go by when he does not speak about the report from the committee.

I also pay great tribute to AsIAm for its extraordinary advocacy and patience with us in recent years, when I know at times it must seem that the pace of things are frighteningly slow. The recommendations of this report are fantastic. I am delighted that so much is already under way. I am particularly pleased with the optional protocol memo that went to Cabinet this week. I thank the Minister of State for all her extraordinary work on that. I know we have called for it to be ratified for a couple of years now and it would appear that the time is right. It is important that people with disabilities have the right to complain to the courts about the failure of the Government and the State to discharge a duty of care and to vindicate their rights. It is important we do that.

I pay tribute to the Dublin 12 autism advocacy group and the fabulous mammies there who advocate amazingly. They came in and spoke to the children's committee and the disability matters committee. I also want to pay tribute to Involve Autism and its extraordinary work. Again, it has been my privilege to work with it in recent years.

I know there have been calls from Government and even from the Taoiseach of late that we need to review the Disability Act. It is not enough to guarantee an assessment; we need to guarantee the services. On that, I thank Senator Clonan for his generous remarks. I know he has been mad with anger at times and giving out, and rightly so. Many of us have sat nodding to many of the things he has said, although we might disagree sometimes on philosophy, approach and the ability to deliver. I thank him for his considered remarks today. We all want to get to the same place of equality. Equality means that we give disproportionate advantage to those who need it, and that is right. I am a short little person. I might be in high heels today, but I am only 5 ft 2 in. If I need to see over a 6 ft wall, I need a stepladder. We need to be the people who create the stepladders and make them a normal part of our society in order for everybody to have an equal opportunity, be that in education, delivery of services, the construction of our streetscape and public realm, housing, access to work and the attitudes at work. Huge work happens to make that so.

When I heard Senator Clonan remark on culture, I know that the political culture, the political will and the money are there is to deliver. I know extraordinary people deliver on the front line, whether they are nurses, carers, SNAs, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists or public health nurses. There are extraordinary people are out there delivering on the front line in situations where staffing is challenged. They are doing so under extreme pressure.

I note, in the context of this debate, that I am not sure that cultural change is happening everywhere. I recently asked a colleague to submit a parliamentary question to the Courts Service to know how many defamation proceedings have been issued against members of families where there is an individual with disabilities, where they have complained about the services and the care by the staff and where defamation proceedings were issued against them. I know many families who are frightened to speak out, or who have spoken out in the past but found themselves in receipt of solicitors' letters issued at the behest of people in the HSE. I have also sought to know how many families in the wards of court process who have expressed concerns and who have received an injunction against speaking. I have asked for the details on that. The Courts Service has come back to my colleague with reassurances that a response will be forthcoming.

Over the course of four years, I have raised issues in this House. The disability matters committee used to meet on a Thursday morning after which I would come into the House for the Order of Business and say what I heard that morning was terrible and talk about the case of a family which had been in. I have raised a huge number of cases. I have had the experience of a manager in the HSE writing to me and expecting me to correct their version of the story on the record of this House. They had the audacity to challenge the democratic process and my right to stand up here and speak on behalf of families.