Our Work
What We Do
Our work varies.
We hold member meetings online and face-to-face.
We represent the organisation by speaking at conferences.
We speak at the Disability Matters Committee which was formed by the government to considers all disability matters including monitoring the implementation (by Ireland) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
We prioritise our work by looking at our strategic plan. That helps us decide how to make better use of our time to make the lives of people with disabilities better.
Collaboration
We work with other national organisations to help them raise awareness of the rights of people with disabilities.
Dermot Lowndes took part in the ‘Because we’re all human. Means we’re all equal.’ national awareness campaign. This campaign was run by IHREC and aims to inform attitudes towards disabled people.
#AllHuman #AllEqual_Dermot from IHREC on Vimeo.
Disability Matters
We are frequently invited to speak or send submissions to the Joint Committee on Disability Matters.
We have also contributed to submissions by the DPO Network when we haven’t had time to complete a seperate one ourselves.
This is our Submission on the lived experience of disability to The Joint Committee on Disability Matters which was our response to a public consultation launched by the committee to hear about the lived experience of people with disabilities on the issues that affect us and our families.
Research
We have completed 3 major pieces of research.
We published our reports and you can read them on our Research page.
We have taken part in many other research projects. For example Housing Board, Prisioners Rights, Reproductive Rights.
Conferences
Our steering committee members are asked to speak at conferences on issues that affect our lives.
We hope in the future that other members of the National Platform will represent us at some of these events.
This will ensure that everybody’s voice is heard. People have different issues that affect them so it is a chance for more people to be involved.
Representations
Members of the steering committee represent people with intellectual disabilities on many committees. Here is a list of some of them:
IHREC Disability Advisory Committee
Transport Users Advisory Group
HSE Guiding Principles
One of our Steering Group members is on the board of Inclusion Ireland
Make Work Pay
Taskforce on Personalised Budgets
Consultations
We are frequently consulted by organisations who want to understand the lived experience of people with intellectual disabilities. We have ongoing consultations with the Department of Social Protection, the HSE, The Department of Children Equality Disability Integration and Youth, Dublin City Council among others.
The DPO Network
The National Platform is part of The DPO Network. The DPO Network is an alliance of five national Disabled Persons’ Organisations in Ireland. We meet at least every 2 months.
We work together to help ensure that the UN CRPD in Ireland is fully implemented.
The other four DPO member organisations are:
• As I Am – Ireland’s National Autism Advocacy Organisation
• Disabled Women Ireland (DWI)
• Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI)
• Irish Deaf Society (IDS)
