Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I welcome Rita Abernethy, Claire McIlwraith and Bobby Bailey from Deaf OAP NI. Rita, I think that it is you who will make a brief opening statement, before we move to questions from members. Thank you.

Ms Rita Abernethy (Deaf OAP NI): I would like to explain the background. We set up Deaf OAP NI as a lunch club in Bangor, and it runs every two weeks. It is really an opportunity for deaf people to come together and chat. We also arrange events. We have speakers in every couple of weeks. It is a great club that is really well enjoyed. The three of us are the committee. We support each other with any finance that we have, and we sort out the food and events. We organise a holiday every year, and we have a Christmas dinner. We have been running the group for 13 years now. Previous to that, someone else, who was not deaf, was running a lunch thing. Everybody who runs the group is deaf. We are all deaf.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you. We are very keen to hear about the specific issues, perspectives and challenges for deaf older people and how they relate to the Bill, so we very much appreciate your attendance at Committee today.

Mr Bobby Bailey (Deaf OAP NI): I will start by adding something. I have so many concerns, because we have a lot of friends who are deaf and are getting elderly and moving on in age. I go out and visit friends, as we all do. We go out into the care home sector — nursing homes and care homes — and meet people there. When we ask them how they are, they always say, "I am OK, but I am really lonely". Dementia appears in older years. Staff in those settings have no communication skills, so all that those people are getting is notes written down and passed to them. For anybody in life at that stage, do you want all your communication to be written down and given to you in notes? We have a thriving deaf community that uses British Sign Language, but those people are stuck in care homes, and it is a real concern for us that there is just no provision.

Ms Abernethy: It would be fantastic to have an OAP home or unit within a home where you would have staff who have sign language skills or deaf staff who could work there. It would mean that people's mental health would be helped, because, if they go into those homes, they are just thrown in and left to decline because they are so isolated and so lonely. There is nothing for them.

Ms Claire McIlwraith (Deaf OAP NI): The thing is that the staff do not have training in sign language. That should be a given. It should be a prerequisite. They are going out and mouthing away at people, but, when you are deaf and cannot hear, you just do not know what is being said. It is very worrying.

Mr Bailey: It is fine for staff to learn sign language, but sign language is a language, and you cannot pick it up in a couple of sessions. They would need to have intermediate level skills at least. People can learn basic level qualifications — call it levels 1 and 2 — but you need way more than that to have effective communication, especially with somebody who is older or whose communication is changing. People then do a wee course, but can you imagine from your learning of language? A wee course does not give you much. Then, these are older people whose language is changing and who are very isolated, and that is as much as they get. Therefore, we need to have either staff with lots of sign language training or deaf staff going in.

Ms Abernethy: If somebody is in a permanent setting, it would be fantastic to have staff going in. I understand that staff have to start somewhere, but the whole approach needs to be addressed regarding who can work with deaf people and how that can be supported. Bobby is absolutely right: having a few signs does not give you fluent communication with someone who has been deaf all their life.

Ms McIlwraith: My husband, who, sadly, is no longer with us, had a stroke and ended up in a care home for eight months with no communication ever until I went in. A consultant said that they wanted him to go into the care home, and I refused. I absolutely refused. It ended up in a major meeting, where I just refused. It was very distressing for me. In the end, I brought him home with me. I am only a tiny woman; my husband was not tiny. We had to get a hoist in to try to get him lifted. He stayed with me, at home, for 27 years, because I would not let him go into one of those places. I know what it is like for deaf people. We have seen our friends go in. They just decline from the day that they go in, so I kept him with me for 27 years, and I did everything for him. He passed away five years ago now.

Ms Abernethy: My other suggestion is this: deaf people will be isolated like that in that sector, so peripatetic staff should be employed to go around and visit all those homes and bring stimulation to people. That is something that you could absolutely pay a deaf person to do: to go out, meet people, give them that chat, give them that conversation and bring them into what is going on.

Moving on, another issue that I would like to raise is the PA scheme for older people. I remember that, during COVID, my husband and I applied to the Department for Communities for some funding for us to do a PA-type role and to set up a device for remote technology for deaf people, because, during COVID, deaf people were even more isolated than everybody else was when they were stuck at home. We got funding, and we knew a lot of different deaf people who had time and availability, and we sorted out the funding for them to go out as PAs, to visit people, to set up the equipment and to do all that stuff. We ran that for two years, and it worked really well. Obviously, funding then stopped, and we were not able to do that again, but I have always thought that it worked so well.

If you have a good scheme in place, there are deaf people out there who could do that. They could travel around and visit people in their home, take them out for a cuppa, take them out to museums and parks — do all those things. Deaf people have the ability to do that for other deaf people, but there needs to be some proper system in place to enable that. Across the water, look at what is going on in England: there is a very thriving system of PAs, who are employed to do that. I have heard that people who are visually impaired have PAs, but I do not understand why deaf people do not get that. There are job opportunities here as well that so many deaf people could jump at. They do not have the employment opportunities that others in society have.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you. That was a passionate setting out of a number of specific problems, which is useful to hear, and a perspective that has maybe not received the focus that you are bringing to it today.

You mentioned changing communication as people get older. Can you tell us what that is and about its impacts?

Ms Abernethy: I can indeed. Language changes between the generations. A lot of our younger deaf people had to go to school in England. They were educated in England, so their signing is slightly different. We also have deaf people who travel to Dublin to be educated, so we have signs that are different. It is not that the language is different, but older people will maybe not understand the sign language that the younger generation is using, because they are bringing signs in, and, because they have travelled, their signing is slightly different.

We are all older people in our lunch club. We use what we see as a rich form of sign. It is native to here, where we are from. We use a lot of finger spelling, body language and facial expression that other generations do not have. A lot of us went to school in Jordanstown, and some went to school in Dublin, but because of our generation — we know each other and each other's life experience — we just have a language through which we can communicate instantly and easily. We are from all different religions, and that is OK. As a deaf community, there is something very strong that bonds us. We are the only club like that in the whole of Northern Ireland, and it is a key service for the deaf people who attend our club.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you.

You mentioned that, in relation to clause 2, there were other approaches, over and above the provision of sign language classes, that could be used to ensure greater use of sign language. Will you tell us a bit more about what those other approaches might be?

Mr Bailey: Yes, absolutely. This causes me to think ahead. What we really need to see is sign language being taught in schools. That is really important. A number of schools run shorter courses, and being able to teach our young people — our citizens of tomorrow — sign language will make huge headway. There are schools in England that provide sign language to children, and that is brilliant. The difference that that can make is huge, and I would love to see that more formalised here.

Ms Abernethy: We need to make sure that we are teaching sign language to those in nursing homes. They should all have basic communication skills. We should not wait until a deaf person moves into a home. We need to make sure that we are preparing and that care homes are ready. If it is more in the western area, you would focus more on Irish Sign Language; if it is more in this area, you would focus more on BSL. It is important that we are respecting deaf people in their language of choice.

When we talk about English and accessing English, you have to consider that, for us, English is very much a second language. Therefore, if you are older, communicating in your second language and writing things down is just not appropriate. The problem is that deaf people may not be very vocal and will not necessarily complain. Therefore, everybody thinks that they are OK, but what is actually happening is that deaf people are just declining in those homes. Sign language is my first and primary language, and, whenever I am trying to write things down, I cannot express myself in the same way that I can in sign language. I am getting older too, and we have to think about those who are much older. A lot of our older generation would use a lot of finger spelling. That would be incorporated in the language. It is important that that is honoured and that we are using and learning the language of the people who will be in those settings and of our older generation.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you. That reminds me of what has often struck me, namely the need for social workers, for example, to be able to communicate in sign. When I was a social worker, I tried to take up classes locally, but they were oversubscribed, which underlined the lack of provision in a sense.

Thank you for that so far. I am now going to turn to other members for questions.

Ms Abernethy: Sorry, Chair, may I just come in on your point about social workers? I live in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust area, and we have no social workers who can sign at all. I was in Mossley Mill just last week for a meeting, and there were a number of deaf people and social workers. I do not even think that we have sensory support social workers now in the Northern Trust. We have people who can provide equipment, but we have no social workers for the deaf at all in the Northern Trust, whatever way the system has changed. If I needed a social worker for the deaf, I could not get one. I know that Cookstown has a very strong service. I am not sure about the north-west, but I know that Belfast has an excellent service for deaf people. Why, then, does another trust have a completely different system, whereby I could not get a social worker for the deaf if I needed one?

Mr Bailey: Sorry, may I also interrupt there? I am from and live in Lisburn. A social worker came out to my house. I did not know who she was, and she was speaking to me. I said, "I am deaf; I use sign language". She said, "Oh, well, I cannot sign". I said, "Well, thank you, but I will not be needing your services if you cannot communicate with me". It was interesting that she was a social worker who works in a sensory support team and cannot sign. It just does not make sense. How do you get a job such as that, and there is no requirement to learn sign language? Really, as a deaf community, we need to be honoured. Our language needs to be honoured, and, if somebody is going to be working with us, there needs to be provision made, and that needs to be thought of. When you are looking at criteria, sign language should be a criterion if you are going to work with deaf people.

Ms Abernethy: Absolutely, it should be part of the essential criteria for anybody working with the deaf community, because a lot of people who work in the public sector for us do not know anything about sign language, and it really does not make sense.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): That was an excellently made point. Thank you.

Mrs Cameron: Thank you so much for your attendance at the Committee today. In particular, Rita, who is my constituent, it is lovely to see you. I am fresh and new to the Communities Committee, but I am delighted to be here to witness the scrutiny of the Sign Language Bill, which is of such great importance. I have worked with you, your family and your friends over the years, as have the staff in my constituency office, and we know how challenging it is. I thank you and your good husband for your patience in how you deal with communicating with us; I know that it is a real challenge because we do not have the talent to communicate in your language of need.

Going forward, I am very excited to see this legislation. In a country where language is often seen as very controversial, there is a great need for Northern Ireland to bring this Bill forward and ensure that we have provision going into the future. We understand that it will not happen overnight; it will be hugely challenging. We know how vital the services of the wonderful interpreters are. We understand how challenging it is for them and how there is huge burnout in what is very intensive work.

Could you outline what you see as the key challenges that we need to be looking at and concentrating on while scrutinising the Bill? Do you have any ideas about how we deal with the short, medium and long-term actions around skilling up our people to learn sign language, how we can best go about that, or what else could go into the Bill to ensure that we make the best possible use of this legislation for the deaf community?

Ms Abernethy: OK. Communication is at the heart of all this. Communication is so important for us as a deaf community. Without communication, we are completely isolated, and we face barriers. If we have the ability to communicate in sign language, we have access, and we can live our life like anybody else. Communication is key. For example, when we go out and interact with people, a lot of them do not have sign language. I gave you the example of social workers. We need to have those support structures in place in order to be able to live our life. How can we access a service if the service cannot communicate with us? When I had my first daughter, I had a social worker come out to the house who could sign. My children left home a long time ago, but, for some reason, we do not even have social workers now. In some ways, we are seeing a regression, despite time moving on. The mayor at Mossley Mill can sign. She learned sign language, because she has a deaf niece. Being able to communicate with people whom we meet makes such a difference to us in our lives.

Ms K Armstrong: Thank you so much for coming along today. For me, as a person with hearing loss, it is very important as I get older that others understand how difficult life can be.

I want to take you back to the Bill. The Bill talks about using sign language and the importance of having classes, but it talks only about classes being provided for children, although that is important. Do you think that we should amend the Bill in order to ensure that older people have access to sign language classes too?

Ms Abernethy: Do you mean older deaf people or people who are not deaf?

Ms K Armstrong: It could be older deaf people or people who are losing their hearing.

Ms Abernethy: Learning sign language could well be a benefit for people who are losing their hearing. They might get to the point where they have no residual hearing at all. Therefore, people need to learn how to access interpreting services, because that can transform access to life. Yes, I can see that, totally.

Mr Bailey: Do you remember Rose Ayling-Ellis, who was on 'Strictly Come Dancing'? She appeared in a TV programme where she taught sign language to some older people. I do not know whether you saw that programme. At the end, one of the people came up and did their best using the sign language that they had learned. It was very emotional for everybody who was watching that to see the liberation that it gave them. I thought that Rose did a fantastic job in bringing sign language to that sector.

I can give you another example. I was a sign language teacher. I used to teach students in the QUB medical school. Once they got to their third year, some medical students would do a sign language module. A story came out of that about a deaf mother who had struggled to get hold of an interpreter. Her child needed to go into hospital in the middle of the night, and she did not know what to do. She arrived at the emergency department, obviously in a panic. A doctor came out who had just a few bits of sign language. That deaf mother said that she was so relieved and delighted that somebody met her who could, at least, say, "Hello, how are you?" and make that effort to communicate face to face with her. She gave me the feedback that that would be crucial for medical students.

Ms Abernethy: The residents in care homes or nursing homes could potentially help to teach the residents around them. There are some things here that could be looked at and addressed.

Ms K Armstrong: Thank you.

My next question is about residential care homes. The Bill talks about types of organisations that deliver services of a public character.

Some of the residential care homes are not run by government. Rather, they are private. They will therefore fall outside the requirements of the Bill.

Ms Abernethy: We know that. That is not helpful.

Ms K Armstrong: They fall outside the Bill, because they are not mentioned in it. The Bill mentions only those residential places that offer public services that the health trusts provide. Do you therefore think that we need to ensure that, where any organisation is providing services of a public character?

Ms Abernethy: One hundred per cent. Absolutely. If you are going to have a law, we, as residents of Northern Ireland, want to know that we are going to have access to communication. It should not be up to us to know whether where we are going is a government-based service.

Ms K Armstrong: It is therefore important for us to include hairdressers, retailers, homes and anywhere else where people have interactions.

Ms McIlwraith: Nowadays, we get a wee "Thank you" sign when we go into places, but that is the only sign that we will ever see. The sign for "Thank you" is the one that people have picked up, but there is nothing else.

Ms K Armstrong: When we talk about organisations taking "reasonable steps", we are talking about all organisations that you come into contact with, not just government-led organisations.

Ms Abernethy: Totally. I would have thought that that was a given. We live in Northern Ireland. If there is going to be a law, why are we being refused access to communication? The legislation would have to apply to, for example, the whole fold system. We know that plenty of deaf people are living in folds. Do they have access or not? The fold system is lovely, but, if there were a fire alarm or another emergency, a deaf person could be trapped in the room. Do folds have an emergency evacuation system that is appropriate for deaf people? Do the staff know how to communicate with a deaf resident in an emergency?

Ms McIlwraith: They should have a flashing light in their room, but we do not know whether they do. That is the thing. We are sitting here not knowing the answers, so the situation is fairly serious.

Ms K Armstrong: My final question is about deaf culture. The legislation proposes that deaf culture be limited to sign language, but we know from hearing about your lunch club that it is more about other things than it is about communication. Deaf culture is about life, about families and about what you enjoy doing. Should we therefore include more protections for deaf culture in the legislation?

Ms Abernethy: Absolutely. It is about whom we are and what we are doing.

Mr Bailey: When our lunch club meets in Bangor, people do not stop chatting from the minute that they arrive. You watch this vibrant conversation going on. We almost have to stop it to try to get them to eat their lunch, because the lunch is sitting there. You can see the hunger and the desperation that there is for them to be together.

Ms Abernethy: Trying to get them out of the building on time is a nightmare. We have a security man who is constantly trying to get us all out, but I cannot get them out the door, because it is people's chance to chat.

Ms K Armstrong: It sounds wonderful. You have given us fantastic insight today that we have not heard before. Thank you so much. It is really helpful.

Ms Abernethy: Just last week, I was looking around the room. I organise the whole thing. There was an empty seat where a lady who comes to our group usually sits. She is in a wheelchair, although that has nothing to do with it. She is deaf, and she was not there. Usually, she would let me know in advance, because we run the lunch club every second week, and she knows that it is always on. I was therefore a bit concerned about her, and everybody else then got a bit concerned, because she is always there. When I got home, I gave her a call, which was obviously a video call, and asked whether she was all right. She said, "Yes, I'm fine. What's wrong?". I replied, "You missed lunch club today". She was so upset. She had been doing something in her garden and had forgotten. She kept saying to me, "Oh, Rita, that is awful. I missed it. I'm so devastated. What were you doing? Tell me all about it". She was like that because the lunch club is the highlight of her life. She had just not made it that week. That is how important it is to people. For everybody, it is just the main thing that they look forward to from session to session.

We do not have the capacity or the resources. I have to limit the lunch club to 30 people. There is almost a waiting list for it. We have a room. We run the lunch club ourselves, and there are sometimes volunteers there. I am almost waiting for somebody to die before I can admit other people. There is only so much capacity for me to do this. There are more people out there who could benefit from the lunch club.

Mr McHugh: Tá fáilte romhaibh.

You are all very welcome here today. Your presentation was enlightening. It has made me aware of the depth of the lack of facilities for deaf people in the North of Ireland. As a Gaeilgeoir

, I appreciate entirely the benefit of language. I totally agree with you that language is about communication. Communicating brings with it its own culture, as we have referred to. An understanding of language, irrespective of what language it is, enlightens us all and gives us an appreciation of the difficulties that people are confronted with. Your presentation brought home to me the reality that older deaf people are confronted with the whole idea of going into an old people's home in which there is absolutely no provision for them whatsoever. I am very aware of the depth of the lack of facilities in every aspect of society in the North of Ireland. Through the Bill, I hope that there will be an improvement at least in this Building, but the extent of that improvement is what worries me. I am sure that that worries you as well.

The legislation states that bodies must take "reasonable steps". What steps do you consider to be reasonable to meet your basic needs?

Ms Abernethy: It comes back to providing communication. For example, today, I got to the gate and said, "I'm deaf", and I was able to make accommodations, but older deaf people, who are at a time in their life where they do not have the energy or the resilience to be able to make accommodations, would not have had the confidence to do anything about that, whereas I could. If everybody therefore knew a little bit of sign language and had a little bit of deaf awareness, that would be excellent.

It is also about deaf people doing jobs for deaf people. For example, if we had a deaf member of staff, or a few who were able to go out to care homes to visit people and stimulate them, that would make a huge difference. It would bring deaf people to the forefront.

Mr McHugh: As you said, you are probably the only group in the North of Ireland that embraces people who have Irish Sign Language and British Sign Language. Our society currently seems to be all over the place when it comes to embracing language, so that sends a message that language threatens no one. You are showing great understanding of that.

Ms Abernethy: As a community, that is whom we are. It is deafness first. In the throes of the Troubles here, we, as a deaf community, did not care from what side of the community people were. For us, it was about coming together, regardless of which language people used or their religion. In that sense, we are apolitical. We have had the same life experiences because we are deaf, so our deafness comes first. The three of us have been volunteering in Bangor. We are so happy to do that, and no wage is involved. We, as a community, believe in helping one another.

Ms McIlwraith: In the deaf club in Bangor, we not only have deaf people from Bangor but have people who travel quite a distance. Rita lives in Glengormley. I live in Downpatrick. We come from far and wide to get there, because it is such an important space. It does not matter how far people have to go, because having a place to where we can go and be ourselves, use our language and not be isolated for that little period is so important for us.

Mr Bailey: I know five deaf people from Whitehead who come down to the lunch club. That is quite a distance for them to travel. They come because it is perhaps the only time in those two weeks that they can communicate with and talk to somebody in their own language.

Mr McHugh: Thank you for your presentation today. I can only but hope that services for the deaf community are greatly improved as a result of your efforts and included in the Bill.

Ms Mulholland: Thank you so much for your contributions today. I have been particularly struck by the conversation on communication in healthcare settings. I am dealing with a deaf constituent in the Northern Trust who could not access an ambulance. When they turned up at the hospital, there was no receptionist who could even say, "Hello", as you have said. Moreover, reception did not know how to book a BSL translator and did not even know that they could do so. Such systematic failures block access.

We hope that the Bill will improve accessibility. How much of an impact will the Bill have on improving patients' independence when accessing healthcare? If there were more people in the healthcare system who could sign and communicate directly rather than that being done either through a translator or a family member, do you think that that would help?

Mr Bailey: Yes, but it then comes down to the level and the quality of the sign language that people know. Very often, somebody working in healthcare who has minimal sign language is put into situations, and that is dangerous, because it creates risk. Sometimes, a nurse will have a little bit of sign language, and a doctor will say, "Come and interpret for me". They will then try to spell something out that starts with "C", and you know what the Big C can mean. Wrong information results in misinformation. We therefore need to make sure that, if we are going to go down the route of having health professionals with sign language, they need to have the proper skills.

Ms Abernethy: A few months ago, I had a Ukrainian couple living with me for a while. The lady was ill, and we went to the doctor. The doctor said that she needed to go to the Antrim Hospital ED, so I took her to the hospital. We were at reception, and I said, "She is deaf and is from Ukraine, so can you book a BSL interpreter?". I wrote that down, and the lady on reception said, "No, I can't book the interpreter. You'll have to wait until you go into the emergency department". Anyway, we sat in the ED, and then somebody came out shouting her name, which is Olga. I was able to lip-read what she had said. I went mad and said, "Can you please not speak like that? Write it down so that we can see it", because I have to be on high alert to be lip-reading everything constantly. The person then said, "We will get an interpreter booked". We were then told that the interpreter was on their way but that Olga needed to get her bloods done. We were then told to sit down.

We had arrived at the hospital at 10.00 am. We sat waiting, and the doctor came out at 1.00 pm. Again, he was speaking at us. I said, "Look, we are deaf. We need an interpreter". He replied, "You need an interpreter? There is an interpreter coming, but come on in anyway, and we will get started". The doctor had his phone out, and I was thinking, "What on earth is coming?" Off we went, and then I realised he was using the SignVideo interpreting service app. The doctor had the interpreting service on the screen, and he was going through everything and asking lots of questions. I then asked, "What about the interpreter?", to which he replied, "There is no interpreter available". We ended up sitting on until 9.00 pm. I was doing all of that voluntarily. I was supporting that lady because the hospital did not phone an interpreter.

I asked the company whether a request had gone out, because we know that interpreters will always receive the requests. No request had gone out, however. The hospital therefore did not phone through to try to get an interpreter. I had therefore sat there from 10.00 am until 9.00 pm. If I had not been there to support her, Olga would not have been able to access any treatment, or, indeed, any hospital care at all. It is not good enough.

Ms Mulholland: That tracks with what I heard from my constituent. That leads on to one of my other questions. Have you seen any improvements happen in people accessing interpreters or signed information? Where do you think the biggest gaps sit at the minute?

Ms Abernethy: I do not know whether I can answer that question, because I am really here to talk about the experience of older deaf people. For them, trying to communicate without an interpreter is a massive barrier. That is all that I can tell you. I cannot comment on service delivery. I just want to know that an interpreter can come out when requested and will be booked as soon as is possible. That is my response to that question.

Mr Bailey: I tried to use the SignVideo app when I was in hospital one time. I got an interpreter from across the water, as opposed to a local interpreter. Our dialect is quite strong, as can theirs be. Using the app therefore left me feeling very uncomfortable. It did not feel the same. You know what it is like when spoken accents are not the same. That is what it is like. The number system looked very different from ours. There are local interpreters working on that app, but I would like to see more of them used so that I do not have to encounter English interpreters. I use that remote app quite a bit. It works really well. It is great, but, because of the dialect issue, I want to use only Northern Ireland interpreters.

Ms Abernethy: The SignVideo app that we use is a remote interpreting service. It is fine for me, but I am not so sure that the very old generation will use it, because it is on a screen on a phone. Those people are not as likely to use technology, so, again, although the app is great, it is a wrong to assume that it will work for everybody. It is a barrier. Links are also sent to information websites. That works for a certain generation, but it does not work for older people with whom I work. I have heard of people going to their doctor and being told to get a sick line, but they are then told, "No, you have to go on to a website and fill in a form". If people do not have great literacy skills or do not have English as their first language, that is an immediate barrier. We have great sign language skills but not necessarily English skills, but English is what we encounter all the time.

Ms Mulholland: That is a really good point. Thank you very much. One piece of learning that I will take away from the whole process is that there are accents in sign language, just as there are in every other language. I find it fascinating that where people are taught sign language really makes a difference. Thank you so much for your contributions today.

Ms McIlwraith: In the past — Rita referred to this — there was a bit of technology called a portal. That was the name of the wee device. I used it loads, because the screen is a bit bigger than that on a phone. I have seen people trying to use the portal, but other people who are a bit older cannot even use that. They will call me over to try to help them with it, so they can use it when somebody helps them. We were talking about communication changing. When people are older, they do not necessarily retain information. It is the same for everybody, but think about deaf people in a care setting. There is also a cost involved. I am not great with technology, but we use such portals. I am at the stage at which I still can. Some people cannot, while some people cannot afford them.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you all. You have brought a really valuable, important and additional perspective to our meeting. It will be really useful for our consideration of the Bill. I am also hugely impressed at the passion, knowledge and beautiful expressiveness of the language and how you have communicated with the Committee. It has been very powerful, so thank you for that. We will do our utmost to reflect your concerns.

Ms Abernethy: Do you mind if I add something? Before coming here today, I tried to go through the Bill. It is in English, and that really put me off. Fixed formats can prove very difficult for deaf people. I have enjoyed today's evidence session with you. If I were required to respond in a fixed format such as English, I could not have done so, as I could not have read the Bill, so thank you for giving us the opportunity to appear before the Committee in person, because our contribution has been very different from any that you would have got had we submitted a written response.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): The Committee has enjoyed it as well. Probably more importantly, however, we have benefited hugely from it.

Ms Abernethy: That is great to hear.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): As I said, we will do our utmost to reflect your concerns and your experience. We want to ensure that the Bill delivers the maximum benefit and leads to significant progress. The postcode lottery that other people experience is writ large here, so there is a need for the legislation to be regional, local and relevant to you. Thank you, Claire, Rita and Bobby. You have really assisted us today.

Ms Abernethy: Thank you.