Last night, the Minister for disability, Deputy O'Gorman, said that Ireland is "falling down in terms of our response to disabled people". For one, Ireland is not falling down. It is the Government. Then, the Minister suggested that a specific referendum on disability rights might be required to prevent this in the future. At this point, I am not sure if the Government is aware of this, but it should not need a referendum to force it to provide rights and services to people with disabilities. It could just do it. Just so we are all clear on this, last night, the Minister conceded that the Government is failing disabled people and suggested it would continue to unless there was a referendum, which it has no plans to hold.

Disability services in this country are a disgrace. They are threadbare and they are ruining people's lives. The Government does not need a referendum to change that.

Thank you, Deputy.

The Government could bring pay parity to children's disability network teams. It could provide adequate personal assistance hours. It could, a decade on from scrapping it, introduce a transport scheme.

Thank you, Deputy, please.

The list goes on. If the Taoiseach has any interest in addressing these shortcomings, he could start by ratifying the optional protocol to the UNCRPD. Will he do that before the family and care referendums?

I fully agree with the Deputy on one point. There is no referendum that will in itself improve services and there is no referendum that is going to build any more houses or anything like that. I totally agree with the Deputy in that regard. It can only ever be a certain part of the picture. We are putting record amounts of resources into disability services. Approximately €2 billion per year goes into disability services. I know there are huge gaps around the country. I meet the same people who are affected and hear the same stories as the Deputy.

Specifically, with regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that convention was ratified by the previous Government, which I had the honour to lead. It is our intention to ratify the optional protocol on the rights of people with disabilities. I cannot say to the Deputy that it will be done in the next two or three weeks. I wish it had been. Quite frankly, it would have helped. However, I have spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and to the Attorney General about this. I am not satisfied with the reasons being given for it not being done yet, quite frankly. It is my intention and my commitment to do that during the term of office of this Government.