Professor Eilionóir Flynn
Eilionóir is the Principal Investigator on the ‘Re(al) Productive Justice: Gender and Disability perspectives’ project, funded by Wellcome. Eilionóir is an Established Professor at the School of Law and Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP), NUI Galway.
Her work on disability rights is widely published in international peer reviewed journals and her current research interests include legal capacity, access to justice, and the intersectionality of disability, gender and ageing. She is passionate about educating a new generation of disability activists and scholars, and is currently the Scientific Co-Ordinator of a Marie Curie Initial Training Network known as DARE (Disability Advocacy Research in Europe) which funds 15 early stage researchers working on various disability rights issues across seven European countries.
Prior to this project, Eilionóir held a European Research Council Starting Grant for the VOICES project, which documented the narratives of people with lived experience of legal capacity denial. She regularly collaborates with civil society organisations and disabled people’s organisations at national and international levels. In Ireland, she co-ordinated the Civil Society Legal Capacity Coalition to influence the drafting of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act and internationally she has supported the Secretariat of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly the working group which developed General Comment 1.
Dr Jenny Dagg
Jenny holds a PhD in Sociology from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She received PRTLI 4 funding for her doctoral research that explored the subjectivity of asylum seekers as they sought recognition within the refugee process. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of sociology and politics and continually explore the dynamics of power; agency and subjectivity; exclusion and marginalisation; along with qualitative research methods including biographical interviews, narratives, life histories and lifelines, and visual methods. She has published in the area of power, agency, and refugees; on biographical interviews and lifelines; coping with poverty; social resilience; and migration.
Jenny will collect oral histories about disabled people’s experiences of reproductive justice in Ireland.
Dr Áine Sperrin
Áine Sperrin holds a Phd in International Disability Law from NUI, Galway.. Her research explored independent living in post-conflict countries for adults with intellectual disabilities under Article 19 of the UNCRPD. Her PhD was supervised by Prof. Eilionóir Flynn at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, NUIG and was funded by the Irish Research Council.
Áine has worked with a wide variety of Irish and International human rights groups in research, policy, advocacy, communications and fundraising roles. Before taking up her post-doctoral position on this project Áine was a Research and Policy Assistant with Disability Federation of Ireland, Research and Advocacy Officer at Dublin Simon Community and worked at the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. She has also supported the National Platform of Self Advocates and has experience with Oxfam Ireland, Rights Watch UK and Amnesty International USA.
Áine will conduct research into the laws and policies relating to reproductive justice in Ireland and internationally. She will also conduct interviews with legal and medical professionals.
Ms Maria Ní Fhlatharta
Maria Ní Fhlatharta holds an LLM in Comparative International Disability Law and Policy, and is a graduate of the BCL in NUI Galway Law. As a founding member of Disabled Women Ireland, Maria is active in both the gender and disability equality movements in Ireland. Maria has a keen interest in reproductive justice, and worked on the campaign platform for Together For Yes.
Maria has addressed a number of conferences on issues relating to disability, feminism and lgbtqi+ equality both in Europe and internationally. She has also spoken on a number of TV and radio panels on issues of human rights and equality. Maria is a graduate of the Washington Ireland Class of 2014, and spent her summer at IUBAC, where she looked at working family policy and union diversification. During her undergraduate Maria was on placement at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy.
In her spare time Maria reads, hikes and watches Rugby.