 My name is Barry Colfer, and I'm the director of research here at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. I'm absolutely delighted to welcome you to the first installment in the Institute's new disability policy program. A special welcome and thanks to Professor Jared Quinn, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, who will address us shortly. This event is open to the public, so welcome back to our regular attendees at our events, and a huge welcome to any newcomers. Please keep an eye on our website, iiea.com, for details of future events and research across our various programs. Some 87 million people across the European Union report having lived experience of disability as significant proportion of people. Yet across the EU, only 50% of working-age disabled people are employed, compared to 75% of persons without a disability. Starkly, this gap is even greater in Ireland with only 38.6% of disabled people being in employment, according to Eurostat. Across the EU, people with disabilities are 50% more likely to be at risk of poverty and social exclusion. What's more, the majority of disabled people acquire their disability as they age, and so the longer you live, the greater the chance you have of becoming disabled. Thus, aside from the fundamental human rights imperative under discussion here, disability issues should be something that concerns everyone in society. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the subject of today's discussion, came into force in the EU in 2011. All EU countries, including Ireland, have signed the convention, with Ireland having ratified it in 2018. Before we hand the floor to Professor Quinn, it is a huge pleasure for me to introduce Dr. Vivian Raff, who is our Chair today. I'm re-delighted that Vivian has been able to advise and guide us at the IIAA, as we devise and plan this important new strand of work, and I thank him for that. Also, a quick note that Irish Sign Language interpretation is available today as our closed captions, so on Zoom by clicking more on your screen and selecting captions. Vivian Raff is Research and Policy Officer with the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability Ahead, and is an adjunct teaching fellow at Trinity College Dublin, where he teaches disability and human rights at the Trinity Center for People with Intellectual Disabilities and School of Education. Vivian is an appointee to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Disability Advisory Committee and is on the board of the National Disability Authority. An award-winning disability and human rights advocate, Vivian holds a PhD in education from Trinity College Dublin, a master's in management from Smirford Business School and UCD, and a degree in pharmacology from University College Dublin. Viv, the pleasure is mine and the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Barry, for that very warm introduction. It's my absolute pleasure to be able to work with you and your team here to put together this inaugural program on disability, and it's fantastic to see it being mainstreamed with all the other fantastic topics that you deliver all throughout the year. I'm very pleased to welcome you all to this IIEA event. We're delighted, of course, to be joined by Professor Gerard Quinn, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, who has been generous enough to take time out of his schedule to speak to us. It's been a long time since I've met you, Professor Quinn, and I mean, to me, you would be an idol, so I'm absolutely delighted to have the pleasure to share the screen here with you today. In his address, Professor Quinn will focus on persons with disabilities, obviously, but in terms of Ireland's obligations under international human rights treaties, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted by the UN in 2006. To our online audience, you will be able to join the discussion. Using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. In your question, please identify yourself and your affiliation. If any, please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you, and we will come to them once Professor Quinn has finished his presentation. A reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are bought on the record. So please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter as well, using the handle at IIEA. This, by the way, actually helps to raise disability awareness and further discussion long beyond our presentations today. We are also live streaming today's discussion. So a very warm welcome to all of you tuning in via YouTube, and we have a very high registration, so we have people from all across Europe. I will now formally introduce you to Professor Jerd Quinn and hand over to him. A graduate of Harvard Law School, the King's Inns and the National University of Ireland, Professor Quinn formally held a chair at the National University of Ireland, where he founded and directed the Center of Disability, Law and Policy. In Ireland, he also served as a member of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, 1992 to 96, which was composed of a majority of persons with disabilities. He has received three awards for his work on international disability law, from Rehabilitation International, the US International Council on Disability, and the European Association of Service Providers. Professor Quinn was appointed to his current role as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the Human Rights Council in October, 2020. Professor Quinn, the floor is yours. Well, thank you so much, Viviane and Barry and Leanne, and thank you for inaugurating this amazing series. I've long been an admirer of the work of the Institute of International and European Affairs, providing really a bridge between the international community and Ireland. And I think it's really important to emphasize that this is a two-way street. It's not just about what we learn from the international community, but what we actually can contribute to the international community. And looking back over the years, Ireland has actually played a very outsized role, not only in the UN system, but also in the European Union system in developing its disability policy. So I'm doubly thankful to the Institute for this series. I'm speaking to you today as the UN Special Rapporteur. And most of my last few years have been spent on international affairs and disability, not on Ireland. So I'm not 100% of what's currently happening on the ground, but I'm sure you're going to inform me this afternoon. What I'd like to do is three fairly simple things. First of all, explain to you what a Special Rapporteur is. Who they report to and how they function. It's not my role as a Special Rapporteur to pronounce definitively on the record of particular countries. That's more the job of the UN CRPD Committee, which is what we refer to as a treaty monitoring body. So of course, one of the main issues is, how do we relate to the treaty monitoring body? What is our relationship? And I'll talk about that momentarily. Secondly, I want to talk a little bit about my priorities as UN Special Rapporteur and indeed the work and the work product so far. As you will see, it's all configured to have an impact. It's not work that remains on a shelf, but it triggers important debates internationally in international fora and also in regional bodies like the European Union. And lastly, I will reflect very, very briefly on the theory of change demanded by the UN Disability Treaty. It's many substantive and many process-based innovations. By the way, the work of the UN Special Rapporteur does not depend on ratification of the UN CRPD. We can interact with governments even though they have not ratified the CRPD and we can interact with international organizations and specialized agencies, even though of course they do not have capacity to ratify the UN CRPD. So first of all, what is a special rapporteur and what do we do? You will search UN Charter and you will search UN treaties in vain to find a reference to special rapporteurs. We do not owe our existence to the UN CRPD. We are purely a creature of high politics. Essentially what happens is a bunch of states come together usually in the UN Human Rights Council. They become interested in a topic and they propose a resolution to set up a mandate for a special rapporteurship. There are about 60 of these in existence. The majority of which cover thematic topics like torture, freedom of expression, disability, older persons and so forth. And a minority of which cover human rights issues in particular countries like for example, North Korea or Myanmar. In this particular instance, three countries came together to propose and sponsor a resolution setting up a mandate on disability and they are Mexico, New Zealand and Finland. The exact role of each mandate will depend on the wording of the resolution and that comes down to politics. It doesn't come down to logic and it doesn't come down to law. These mandates or these resolutions have to be renewed every three years and many of them are fought over very contentiously. It's a very, very political process. As I said, there are 60 mandates ranging from in-country like Myanmar to thematic ones like disability, mercenaries, toxics and so forth. When I started three years ago, there were five Irish UN special rapporteurs which was a record for such a small country. We really punch way above our weight internationally. Friends of the mandate, in this instance, Mexico, New Zealand and Finland typically do not fund a mandate. Indeed, the role itself is purely unpaid so we are essentially UN volunteers. There is no set agenda. The candidates are interviewed by a panel of ambassadors and if the ambassadors like what you propose, you get appointed more or less. You set your own agenda and importantly at all times, your work is impartial and independent, both of states and of civil society. That impartiality is taken incredibly seriously. So to get a feel for the mandate, what its particular focus is, you have to read the underlying resolution which has actually been slightly expanded as we speak. And by the way, terminology like special rapporteur, special expert, working group, these are all used interchangeably in the UN system. They basically amount to the same thing. So what are the tasks of the mandate? Typically there are three main tasks and these are tasks I perform as well as all of the other special rapporteurs in the system. First of all, we shine a light on topics or themes for the benefit of the international community. We produce two thematic reports a year alternating between the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council. That is to say these reports are presented to the UN General Assembly or to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Because of the independence and the impartiality of a special rapporteur, I choose the topic and then states debate the analysis and the recommendations that flow from the topic. So it's a way of grabbing attention for issues or topics that are normally missed in the UN international debate. My pitch to become SR was to lift disability from perceived soft social policy silos and connected to broader challenges that are facing humanity. Let me give a few examples momentarily. Often this involves follow-through in the development of international law and policy. In other words, the thematic documents lead to further processes of reform and change in the international system. And I'll give a few examples momentarily. The second main task of a mandate, holder special rapporteur, is to shine a light on particular countries or indeed institutions. Treaty monitoring bodies cannot do this. They lack the budget, they lack the legal means. Special rapporteurs are expected to do this twice a year. The idea is not to name and shame. The idea is to identify blockages, to get a three-dimensional view of what's going on and to make recommendations about the process of change and how the international community can help. I have done country visits so far to Jordan, to the European Union and to Georgia. Well, Georgia is upcoming. Treaty monitoring bodies like the UN CRPD Treaty Monitoring Body, take notice of these reports and these reports are in fact debated in the UN General Assembly. The third main task is, and I'm using UN speak here and I apologize for that, to entertain communications. That's UN speak for complaints that come forward from individuals or groups of individuals around the world. Now I have to be careful here, special rapporteurship is not an adjudicative body. We are not there to provide a definitive legal solution to an issue. The aim is to try and find common ground and to usually do that behind closed doors with the relevant state. After a period of time, the correspondence is made public, but it remains private for a period to facilitate dialogue. Does not depend on ratification of the CRPD. We can interact with a government that has not ratified the CRPD on its record on disability issues. Typically this involves draft legislation where we're called upon to interact with the government on the compliance of the draft legislation with international law. So these are the three main tasks, to shine a light on themes or topics for the benefit of the international community, to shine a light on countries, do an in-depth study of the theory of change, if you will, within a country, and then to entertain communications with the view to bringing about amicable solutions. What about the thematic reporting? What about the work so far? And again, the aim is not to produce a report that sits on a shelf. It's not going to be an academic study. And in fact, we are required to keep these studies to 20 pages or beneath in order to make sure that they get read. So the aim is to initiate a debate in the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council that leads to something. It's all about using SORs to prize open the policy imagination of states. My focus is connecting disability to challenges facing humanity and making sure that disability is part of the solution and not just part of the problem. I also view it as my task to seek coherence across the spread of international law. It's not good enough just to remain within the four corners of the UN Disability Treaty. Most of international law predates the UN Disability Treaty. Most of it is not based on the predicates of the UN Disability Treaty. And if we allow these outlined spheres to stand sooner or later, they will undermine the UN Disability Treaty. I focused on three main sets of these challenges. One unfortunately has to do with conflict and disability. This was long before Ukraine unfortunately erupted. And this is really to do with the prevalence of armed conflicts around the world. Three years ago there were 20 hot conflicts taking place around the world that massively, massively disproportionately affected civilians with disabilities. Our main task is not to make warfare more inclusive. Our main task is to make civilian protection much more inclusive of persons with disabilities. People who are always shocked to learn that the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 does specifically reference people with disabilities as an object of concern, but nothing has happened from 1949 until a relatively recently. So we actually did three reports on conflicts and disability. One was a survey report on the visibility of people with disabilities in conflict prevention and the conduct of hostilities in humanitarian intervention, in peacekeeping and in peace building. We did a second report focused much more narrowly on the laws of war, international humanitarian law and the protection of civilian with disabilities during armed conflicts. And we did that very, very closely, working very closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross. And our third report, which is not yet finished and will be published probably the end of summer, has to do with something very close to my heart, which is the active moral agency of people with disabilities in peace building processes around the world. When you think about it, these peace building moments are very unique moments where polities can be reimagined. But there is an amazing statistic that only 6% of peace treaties in the last 30 years even mentioned people with disabilities and usually only from a medical point of view. So our third report will be about how can we make sure that these unique moments of transformation actually include people with disabilities who are really vastly disproportionately affected by armed conflict. So that's the trilogy on armed conflict and disability. We also did a report on the fourth industrial revolution that's happening right underneath our noses, which is of course the advent of artificial intelligence, changing completely economic relationships, social relationships, perhaps cultural and even political relationships into the future. As is usual with such transformative moments, there is always a balance of risks as well as opportunities. And our core intention was to make states aware that there is this balance and that they better pay attention to it. That interactive dialogue with states, we had 74 states contribute to the debate and there's been much follow on ever since then. We also did a report on the ecosystem of change. It's not enough to argue article 19 of the UN Treaty on Independent Living in the Abstract. We have to pay attention to how service paradigms need to be transformed to enable people live in the community, which by the way is just as important for older people as it is for people with disabilities. So that was another report that we produced which has been published and caused a lot of debate in the UN General Assembly as well. Our country visits were interrupted by COVID, regrettably. We did do a very interesting one to Jordan where the focus was on the process of change, the adequacy of the institutional architecture for change, which was actually very good. The status of the internally displaced persons and refugees with disabilities, and indeed the role of development assistance programs. So we had a great interactive dialogue with Jordan and the rest of the international community on that particular topic. And what it really got us interested in was refugees and refugee law and the interaction between the 1954 Refugee Convention and the UN Disability Treaty. We might come back to that in the Q&A. We also did a country visit and the wording is a little bit off-putting to the European Union as such. Now that's important for us in Dublin because our competence to enact legislation, reform legislation, et cetera, is shared with the European Union. It's not exclusive to Ireland. Our focus there was the theory of change in the European Union, the role of the European Union in the world because many regional organizations are doing a lot of good work on disability, but the European Union is in fact, head and shoulders over the rest of them and can contribute more to how other regional organizations are stepping up. We did not shy away from problematic areas like the use or the misuse of the European social fund to build institutions for persons with disabilities and indeed older people. Something that our current commissioner, Maureen McGuinness, worked very, very, very actively on when she was in the parliament in 2013 when the underlying regulations for the ESF were being changed. And we're about to do a country visit to Georgia, that is to say Georgia in the Caucasus. That has not yet happened. It seems really interesting because it's a country, it's midway from its past in the Soviet orbit on disability, where they even had institutions on defectology, believe it or not, to a modern CRPD compliant state with very, very interesting flashpoints like the future of mental health and indeed community living. Lastly, with respect to communications, what I would like to emphasize is that this is done usually collaboratively with other special rapporteurs. So if you have a special rapporteur focused on education, for example, and if we have an issue or a complaint on lack of inclusive education, we usually do the complaint with the, or rather we usually do the interaction with the government with the other special rapporteur. Examples would be we've done work on inclusive education in Germany that's in the public domain. We've done a very interesting work on the assisted right to die in the Canadian parliament. Indeed, we appeared before the Canadian Senate on that and also on the use of force and disability. Last but not least, these three main tasks, shining a light on thematic topics, shining a light on particular countries and entertaining communications is without prejudice to other kinds of work we do. For example, I've been doing a lot of work on the Hague Convention on the Protection of Adults to make a long story short. This is about legal capacity. You may have noticed that the European Union is proposing a regulation that essentially transposes the Hague Convention into European Union law. And this would completely undermine, for example, positive steps in countries like Ireland toward supported decision-making. So we're about to do another round of detailed comments, particularly focused on the European Commission's proposal. I've met appearances before many courts internationally, particularly on the legal capacity issue, especially before the Indonesian Constitutional Court. We've yet to see what the outcome of that. I've appeared before the Inter-American Court on the right to independent living. And we've interacted very, very closely with the WHO on the future of mental health legislation. And we've interacted very closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross on armed conflicts and disability. I'm probably, well, I'm not going to go for a second term as UNSR for personal reasons, but if I were, I would be focusing on refugees with disabilities, particularly informing the 1954 Refugee Convention with the theory of inclusion that comes from the UNCRPD. I've started work on climate change, but hopefully the next Special Rapporteur will ramp up that work and get involved in, for example, the next conference of states parties. And I believe it's Abu Dhabi later this year on climate change. And I'm particularly interested in doing work on indigenous persons. I will not be the SR doing that work, but hopefully the next SR will be persuaded to do that kind of work. Last, and not least, and I'll hand you back to Vivian very shortly. Let me just say a word or two about the period of change in the UN Disability Treaty. It doesn't function as a predicate for my work as UN Special Rapporteur. I can interact with the government of the United States, for example, even though the government of the United States has not, in fact, ratified the UNCRPD, and I can interact with international specialized agencies on disability rights, even though, of course, they do not have capacity to ratify the UNCRPD. Having said that, we do depend on it a lot for our work, and we do depend on it in terms of both its substantive and process-based innovations, substantively cutting to the chase here. What matters most is the broad and deep theory of inclusive equality in Article 5. I'm sure a lot of people have a lot to say on that, and I'll leave that to the Q&A. And of course, one of the main purposes in drafting the treaty was to bubble up to the surface a theory of personhood, to center people in their own lives. And that's why Article 12 on legal capacity permeates a lot of my work. I will say this, the culture shift in the treaty is still skin deep right around the world. And that's what COVID revealed. It revealed that most states, when pushed against the wall, revert to type and go back to a medical model of disability. So it's never enough just to say, a treaty X requires Y, the culture shift has to be continually argued for. And that really is the core part of the job of the special rapporteur. From a process point of view, the innovations are equally important. I always like to emphasize that the disability treaty is part of a trilogy between human rights, the rule of law and democratization. If the process allows people to have presence, to make the right kinds of arguments and inputs at the right time, then the hope is that the system will respond appropriately. So the process-based innovations are really all about rectifying the absence of the voice of persons with disabilities in the policy-making process. This is about perfecting democracy as a process. It's not about undermining democracy. At the end of the day, the government will have to choose. Article 4, 4 and 33 of the disability treaty, don't give a veto, they give standing to make a case. And part of the force of that case will depend on alliance-building capacity within the sector and even beyond. And that's why I and many, many others have said that the disability treaty now places a premium on developing policy entrepreneurship skills of people with disabilities and their representative organizations. Judy Heumann was very fond of saying that before you go in to meet a minister, you have to know more than the minister and you have to go in with the solutions taught through and not just with an articulation of the problem. Now the CRPD creates that opening. So it all depends on how that's used constructively into the future. So hopefully Vivian, that's food for thought and I'm sure there are many interesting questions and observations that will arise. So back to you. Thank you so much. Yes, sir Quinn. Thank you very much for a very insightful talk but also providing that overview of your role. I have learned a lot myself and I'm sure many people here. What I'm most disappointed to hear is that you won't be continuing, you won't be looking to continue on because I have had the pleasure of reading some or many of your reports, your thematic reports. And what I always find that I have to read them a couple of times because every time I find something new and that they're quite visionary in their hopes and in their views and thoughts in relation to disabled people. And they really act to inspire me to do much of the work that I do. So from that perspective, I'm disappointed to hear that you won't be looking to continue on. However, you leave a huge amount at their far states to work on and think about. I'm going to actually get unconscious at the time but I'm just going to get into one. There are many questions have come in, let me just say. But one thing that I just want to note before we with my own question first is that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez warned and I quote, that a cascade of crisis is putting global progress towards ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities in danger. In light of the Cerebus heat wave hitting the EU and the tree, other heat waves hitting the other continents, his words would seem rather prophetic. Disabled people feel like they have been left behind during the conversations about climate change. Do you share Secretary-General's concerns in relation to this and how can states ensure that disabled people are involved? Thank you very much, Vivian. Yes, I do. And it's really interesting that it's during moments of crisis that we really see truth. The truth is that during these moments of crisis, states always tend to revert to a medical model of disability. One of the interesting issues during the COVID period was, quote unquote, the rationing of scarce medical resources, particularly ventilators for people with disabilities and indeed older people. And that was widely accepted throughout the world. Fortunately, never things never got to that point in Ireland during COVID, but it certainly did in other countries. And it was just symptomatic of how during periods of crisis, systems revert to type. And unfortunately, in this instance, reverting to type means reverting to a medical model of disability, which is completely at odds with the human rights model of disability. We're trying to advance in the UN Disability Treaty. That's why I keep saying it's never enough just to say article five of X Treaty requires such and such. We almost have to continually argue for the value of the movement toward the human rights model. One of the arguments we made was that a lot of predictable mistakes were made during COVID. And if the right people were listened to at the right moment, states would not have made some very, very costly mistakes. So we're trying to make the argument that actually complying with the Disability Treaty subserves the efficiency of public policy as well as the fairness of public policy. So it's really hard to get that argument over the line. And Guterres is right to point out that, unfortunately, we're going to be experiencing almost a concatenation of crisis into the next few years, partly because of partly because of climate change and partly because of conflicts. And that's why I felt at the outset of my tenure that it's not enough to argue about disability rights within very narrow silos. But we really have to connect it to these broader challenges, not just to make sure our voice is present. And that our needs are taken care of, but to contribute to the solution and not just to be part of the problem. So I completely agree with Guterres. And I think you make a very good point there about contributing to the solution. And much of my work with students, I would actually talk about that solution focus mindset. And the great thing I think about many disabled people. And remember, this is disability pride month when we celebrate disabled people and the skills that they have. But one of the skills disabled people have from living in a society that is not built for them is solutions on how to get around things, get over things to build something new. And I think you're absolutely right that disabled people have the solutions themselves if institutions, governments would only listen and include disabled people in decision making. There is a huge amount of questions coming in, Professor Quinn. We're going to be here all day. And OK, so I'm going to come. This comes from Berg Rogen, who is the policy and research manager at the Mental Health Reform. And do you find that there is less awareness around the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities? And how do we encourage states to ratify the optional protocol to the UNCRPD? So that's a two part question there, one in relation to the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities. And then, of course, a very much a different part, which is around that application of the optional protocol. Yeah, great questions. Let me comment on psychosocial disability and mental health, particularly two or three countries have taken a very special interest in transforming mental health paradigms. Believe it or not, they are Brazil and Portugal. And they usually push through very, very interesting, innovative resolutions in the UN Human Rights Council and you're in General Assembly every year, every second year on this. And I know there's a sea change underway in the World Health Organization, which, of course, is the bastion of the medical model that has been for decades. But an aha moment happened maybe three, four years ago. And they are in the middle of redesigning the future of mental health legislation around the world. And you would have to say, at one hand, it doesn't really have a future because the past of mental health legislation was all about restricting rights and what is the process to be used in restricting rights? But in fact, if we look at the CRPD, not as a tool for restricting rights, but as a tool for breathing life into rights, you know, we would say that kind of legislation has no future. And it seems to be the case, it's not public yet, but the WHO now agrees, now thinks that the transformative future of mental health legislation will be all about security and services in the community and not about coercive or restrictive interventions. So watch that space. There's a lot to play for over the next few years. As to the optional protocol, you know, it has a role. It allows the sharp edge or the raw edge of human experience to be expressed before a treaty monitoring body. And sometimes it allows issues that get pushed to the back burner to be pushed up to the front burner. And a classic issue had to do with the interaction of disability rights with the rights of carers. And this was avoided for many, many, many years. And of course, the plight of carers affects women, particularly partially, because they lose pension rights. You name it, but the UN CRPD committee through a complaint on the option protocol about six months ago grasped the nettle finally and conceded that the right to family under the convention goes beyond just a formal right to enter a family and to participate in a family. But it also entails obligations on the part of state to support families and particularly carers. This, by the way, is a huge issue in the UN system. The caring industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. And there's now going to be a global debate on the future of care in the market for care in the UN system over the next two years. And I expect Ireland will participate in that. So it's an example of an issue that might have festered unless you had a mechanism like the option protocol to allow it come to the surface. My argument for ratifying the option protocol wouldn't just hinge on creating space for individuals to ventilate complaints. It will also turn on the interests of states because it is in the interests of states to be able to put a finger on where these systemic problems are within systems. And therefore it's not something that undermines the capacity of state to develop rational policy. It's actually something that would facilitate that. Now, I know Ireland has a long record along with other what's called dualist countries of not ratifying these optional protocols. But I don't think that's that's an insurmountable bar in this instance. By the way, Ireland ratified the collective complaints mechanism under the European social charter that does allow individuals and groups of disabilities to ventilate complaints before the Strasbourg authorities. So if one were to be logical, I don't see a reason why they couldn't ratify the option protocol here. And thank you for that comprehensive response in relation to that. And I think there is some concern within the disabled community in relation to accessing in terms of a course for justice. And it's a certain frustration in relation to that delies in for instance, hearing country reports. But also then with situations where some countries haven't ratified the optional protocol and it there's a sense of lack of trust there as well. Professor Queen, I think. So next question, Marion Wilkinson, a senior policy and public affairs manager at the National Disability Authority asks, what is your view of the EU's move from discrimination based directives to internal market based directives? For example, as regards accessibility. Oh, that's really, really interesting. To really get a handle on that, you have to travel back in time and in space to the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, because the constitutional authority for enacting that famous piece of legislation, it's still the most famous piece of legislation in the world, wasn't just the 14th Amendment on equal treatment. It was also the Interstate Commerce Clause. That is to say the power of the federal government to reach deep into the intricacies of the market and market mechanisms. And a lot of people put the power of the ADA down to how it actually commingled both of those bases of authority to intervene. The moral basis, if you will, the 14th Amendment alongside the market based rationale, which is the Interstate Commerce Clause. Something similar is happening in the European Union. Initially, all of the movement was based on Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Equality Provision, but that was seen as insufficiently strong to get a lot of proposals over the line because it didn't meet with market based exigencies, so to speak. So what they're trying to piggyback on and you're kind of riding a tiger in this regard is market logic and trying to make market logic work for you, as well as the moral argument based on Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam or whatever its numerical equivalent is today. So it's really, really interesting to see those two rationals interact and interweave with each other. And of course, your problem is that the market based rationale gives out at a certain point. And then you have a clear choice to make between the moral based rationale and the market based rationale. It kind of poses the question, is the DNA of the European Union still a market based integration mechanism, or has it been transformed by the EU Charter and international law? That's still out for argument, I say, but it's such a fascinating area. It certainly is. And I imagine there's going to be wide discussion about it over the coming years. There's a question in from actually a colleague of mine on the Disability Advisory Committee, Jackie Brown, member of the Disability Advisory Committee at the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Professor Quinn, can you comment on what is meant in practice by the prioritization of the views of disabled people under the UNCRPD? Thanks so much, Jackie. Jackie and I set on the commission way back in the early 90s and have a lot of history. Yeah, I mean, this is a really interesting issue. It gets to the interaction of a treaty with democratic process. And one of the main blind spots, if I can use that word politically and advisedly, in disability was the absence of people with disabilities in all processes that affected them. And that's why Article 4.4 becomes so central. It could be 4.3. I'm not sure. I'm literate, but not numerous. And it really gives a right of people with disabilities to be present during, to be actively consulted by all policy based processes that affect them, as well as decisions. Very, very interesting. So it has to deal with executive decisions, as well as just the high policy stuff. Now, there's a lot of argumentation over what this means in practice. I'm a Democrat. I very much believe we wouldn't like to give the chemical industry veto or democratic decisions or the farmers veto over nitrates, let's say, in the soil. Likewise, the DNA of Article 4.4, to me, is securing the presence of the voice of people with disabilities in important processes. As John F. Kennedy once said to governance to choose. And you can't dictate what that choice is. Otherwise, you don't live in a democracy. But certainly the views of people with disabilities have to be factored into the equation. It's not a box ticking exercise. It has more to do with the capacity of government as a learning organization and to actively listen. Remember, I said the whole point about some of the COVID policies being followed by governments is that not only were they bad decisions, but they were inefficient decisions. So predictable mistakes were made. So my view for what it's worth is that Article 44 gives presence, gives standing, gives a right to make a case, allows you space to forge alliances and maybe even magnify your voice or amplify your voice through those alliances, not just within the sector, but across all sectors, particularly, for example, with other excluded groups like older people. And then it's down to you to make the cogency for the case. I personally do not subscribe to the view that Article 44 confers a veto over public policy decisions. OK, as well, Jackie, I'll have to have a chat with Jackie again about that as a leisure day. And I think it allows that as well. It comes back to the importance of having disabled people in decision making roles and that our next two sessions, one will focus on education, but the third and final one of the year will actually focus on disabled people in decision making and political participation. So that runs right to the heart of many of the things that you've discussed here today, Professor Quinn. So we have another question in here now. John Sherwin, CEO of the Irish Deaf Society, could Gerd discuss the difference between disability persons organizations under UNCRPD and disability service providers and how the state should go about making this distinction? I think that's a very important question, Professor Quinn. Sure. You know, what was quite educational and transformative about the process for drafting the UN Disability Treaty was the sheer number of representative organizations of people with disabilities who got engaged and got involved. And you could see how states were, let's say, relatively ignorant. I don't use that in a pejorative sense, ignorant of disability issues at the start of the process, gradually outdid each other in how they interacted with DPOs, essentially, and put forward their version of what equality meant for people with disabilities. That all came down to the quality of the interaction of representative organizations of persons with disabilities. Service providers need to be at the table. But as allies, they are not the primary interlocutors. The primary interlocutors are people with disabilities themselves organized spontaneously and with their own representative organizations. Service providers need to be at the table because we require a lot of them. The environment of service provision needs to be radically overhauled. And that was the main objective of our thematic report on service transformation. And very interestingly, in the UN system, there is a whole developed sphere of doctrine on business and human rights. And nobody has ever applied this to the service provision industry in the disability sector, even though most of it is fur business, and it's a multi-billion dollar industry. The good signs, the good tea leaves are that many service providers understand that they need to be engaged in a process of transformation. They understand that representative organizations of people with disabilities need to take the lead. But they also understand that the state has a role in demanding massive transformation in the sector. And one of the objects of our report was to show, actually, you know what technology, et cetera, et cetera shows this is now possible. Even if we're not possible in the 20th century, it's definitely possible in the 21st century. So we can have leaner, more efficient and more personalized service delivery models as things unfold. Might I just add that there was many innovations around the world on what's called wealth accumulation strategies for people with disabilities. That is to say building up the equivalent of trust funds to ensure that people with disabilities can live the life they want and not have their social entitlements whittled away. And there's all sorts of fiscal neutral ways of doing this. And these innovations need to be replicated around the world. And I think Ireland would be ripe for something like that. Sorry, that's a very long winded answer. But it's to say that service providers are allies in a process of change. But they are not the primary interlocutors, representative organisations are the primary interlocutors. I think that is really valuable contribution here to discussion because we have many people here from organisations, from businesses, from government, people independent here and themselves who may not understand the difference and it might be actually quite confusing in relation to that. But I think you actually made some fantastic points in relation to some of that as well in your 2023 report that you mentioned. I think you mentioned the UN title transformation of services for persons with disabilities. It was it's I'd recommend to our attendees here today that it's something they should consider reading, especially business organisations and highlighting the role that they play. I'm conscious we have to unfortunately start bringing things to a close. Professor Quinn, despite the fact that we have many questions still to answer, but I have I'm one question myself. It's a topic I feel quite strongly about a number of countries across the EU have failed abysmally to move forward on de institutionalisation policies. So by way of exact just by way of example in Ireland, the Wased Lives report found that up to 1300 young people under the age of 65 are living inappropriately in nursing homes and I reviewed your report on your visit to the EU. It is clear that the institutionalisation is about more than closure of large institutions and it's about that cultural shift in the approach to the disability. I'd really like you just very briefly just to mention this. I know you've done a lot of work both at home and abroad in relation to this, but what are the essential next steps for countries in the EU to take to move this forward? Well, great question. You know, we get stuck in service paradigms, service models that were designed 50, 60, 70 years ago, perhaps with the best wishes or intention in the world and over time they evolve a momentum of their own and it's incredibly hard to turn those ships around. But when you think about it, the added value of the European structural funds, is there actually there to break the long jump, to fund innovation and to fund completely new models into the future? That is the added value of the European structural funds. To use the jargon of the structural funds, they generate true additionality, and that would be the additionality. But what we've found, notwithstanding some well-intentioned changes to the underlying regulations, going back to 2013, and again I repeat Maureen McGuinness was very instrumental in helping to bring about those changes. What we found is the funds are now continually being used to fund an old paradigm of service delivery throughout Europe. This may not affect Ireland directly, because we're no longer beneficiaries of EU structural funding, but it's certainly delaying movement toward a completely different paradigm in many, many different parts of Europe. You probably heard that Ukraine has been insisting that people who are quote unquote decanted from institutions in Ukraine across borders in the European Union will only be placed in institutions in European Union countries, because that's all they can expect to be placed into when they come back to Ukraine. And by the way, those institutions and those bordering states, they've been funded by the European structural funds. So, this is an outlier in European Union law. The European Union overall is trending very positively on many fronts except this front. And I would say the reason has nothing to do with logic. The reason has nothing to do with law. The reason has to do with the culture in one particular win of the European Union, which is DG regional policy and development. And that's what really needs to change significantly. States know what they need to know and need to do in the abstract. They do not have models of community support on the ground to make that transition toward community living. That's exactly where the European Union can generate additionality, but it's not been done and it's not been done in your name, your attack spirit to the European Union. So I think everybody should get involved in that debate. Well, thank you, Professor Gwynn, on that very strong statement we'll bring the session to a close. I would again like to thank you very much for an incredibly insightful presentation for answering all of those questions. I want to acknowledge that Professor Gwynn we received many many more excellent questions and unfortunately we just didn't get to him today. This, of course, as I mentioned is the first and the opening of the inaugural session on disability taking place during disability Pride Month. We will have two further sessions coming up in the autumn and the winter. One on education, one focusing on decision making and public and political participation. I'd like to thank the IIEA for running with this series and looking to make their