What does Vision Ireland want from the budget? - Talking Technology episode 116

On this episode of Talking Technology, we dive into the Vision Ireland pre-budget submission for Budget 2027.

The submission contains 13 asks for six different government departments, so Kevin Kelly and Jamie Millar break it all down for us to explain what it’s all about. 

In tech news, we explore a new assistance booking app from Irish Rail, and we respond to your voice notes discussing various WhatsApp-related topics.

Kevin asked us very nicely for a show notes link, so you can find the Vision Ireland pre-budget submission here.

Join the conversation with a WhatsApp voice note now. The number you need is +353 86 199 0011

0:00 - intro

2:42 - WhatsApp Voice Notes

18:20 - Pre-budget submission for Budget 2027

37:08 - Talking Technology News

57:36 - outro

Transcript

0:00

This Vision Ireland podcast contains chapter markers. If you want to skip the intro or a topic you don't like, you can use chapter markers to do so. Chapter markers are only supported in some podcast apps. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Talking Technology with VILabs, at VILabs, we believe technology is the single greatest enabler for people with sight loss and all disabilities. If you're looking for the latest news and conversation on tech from a more accessible perspective, you've come to the right place. Yes, indeed you have. Hello one, hello all, welcome into Talking Technology with VILabs, episode 116. Are you roasted alive if you're listening in Ireland? I think it's all we are talking about at the moment. You know, we joke sometimes, myself and Joe here, about talking about the weather on basically every podcast. It's the most Irish thing ever. But yes, we are indeed going through a heat wave and it is very, very warm. We even have a hosepipe ban in parts of the country now, would you believe it? So there you go, hope you are keeping safe and all of that wherever you are in the world. It is crazy hot, but we are making our way through it and hopefully we will be able to keep you cool and collected over the next hour or so, because we have a really cool show coming up for you. We're going to be chatting about all things that the Vision Ireland pre-budget submission. It doesn't sound cool, but I promise you it is because we actually have some really interesting technology asks in there and we'll be talking as well about cost of disability payments. And that is something that hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, lots of the listeners of this very podcast will qualify for. So we'll be catching up with Kevin Kelly and Jamie Miller later in the show. They work on our advocacy team here in Vision Ireland. We'll be catching up with them to learn more about that. We'll have Talk Technology News with Daniel coming up later and we'll be checking in to hear some of your voice notes too. We really do have a packed show coming up for you. And speaking of voice notes, we do absolutely, as always, love it when you do get in touch, whether it's to share tips or thoughts on anything that you're doing technology-wise or just to tell us that you're roasted alive. We love to hear from you. And as always, there are loads of ways that you can get in touch with us. So if you want to join the conversation, WhatsApp is probably the handiest way to do it. If you want to send us a message there, you can do it with our number, the number that you need. It's 086-199-0011. We'll have to switch that up with a username soon. 086-199-0011 is the WhatsApp number that you need. Just send us a voice message. There's a button there at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. It's labeled to a voiceover and also you just double tap and hold that and you can record a message and it will come straight to us. You can also send us an email if you would like the email address that you need there. Content at vi.ie. That's content at vi.ie. So no matter what you would like to discuss with us, we'd absolutely love to hear from you. And to go through some of the correspondence that we have received in from the last little bit, I am joined all the way from a very hot Kilkenny by Mr. Joe Lonergan. Joe, how are you? Hi David. I'm good and I'm harsh as you said, but I'm coping with it. I'm not going to complain once about that weather, I promise. Fair enough. Have you got a fan, Joe? I have a fan. Yeah, I do. I have a fan and without a fan, I think I would be complaining. So yeah, it's a good plan for anyone here in Ireland because we don't have air conditioning like other countries. We're not built for this kind of weather. We're built for rain over here. You were telling me about, I think, was it a fancy fan that you had? I can't remember if it had smart controls or anything like that. But you were telling me about this fan that you wound up with. Yeah, it was a Princess Home. That's a kind of a brand to have a tall tower fan. And it does heat as well in the winter if you wanted to. But unfortunately, the app isn't very accessible. It comes with a tactile remote control, which is a bonus. But the app itself, the buttons aren't labelled, but it does the job. The fan keeps it cool and oscillates as well. So look, I'm at the stage now. We probably only get the weather for a couple of weeks. Would I bother complaining about maybe a schmibboush? There's another one there as well, a really good fan, if anybody's interested in it. I think I recommended this a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully somebody took me up on my recommendation. It's a Shark Flex, and this one really, really does cool you down. But it doesn't have the heating, obviously. The Shark Flex is probably their cheaper version of their fan. It's £129 or £149, depending on where you shop, David. But yeah, there's a recommendation of a couple of good fans for anybody that's interested, because we have another week of this left, I think. Yeah, absolutely. But all we can do is drink water and stay hydrated, stay safe. That's all we can do. And yeah, we will be through it. And as you said, Joe, it's pointless complaining because we'll have a little drop of rain in a few weeks and we'll be giving out about that too. So there you go. There you go, that is the way it tends to be. But hey, anyway, let's dive in to some of the voice notes that we have in from the last little while. Our first voice note, this one in from Amy. Amy was talking about WhatsApp and specifically the introduction of WhatsApp usernames. She is not reserving a WhatsApp username currently because of an issue that she had sending money on Revolut, a really interesting one and worth being aware of for sure. Have a listen to this. I haven't reserved a WhatsApp yesterday, Miesh. In fact, I don't think I will. As a few months ago, I sent money to someone who I did not have in my contacts, but they had the exact same name on Revolut. Thankfully, I got this money back by messaging them on Revolut, even though it was almost a month later. There you go. That can be a really, really awkward situation because sometimes you don't get your money back, especially a month later. But how are you feeling, Joe, about these WhatsApp usernames? It's like we've had the conversation here about will it make people, I suppose, easier to find? Do you always want to be found? You know, is it going to lead to accidental communication? I mean, the great thing about phone numbers is they are, unless you kind of make it public, for the most part, they can be relatively private. Well, yeah, thanks, Amy, as well for the voice note. It's very informative as well as keeping people, I suppose, keeping their eyes open to how you can make mistakes. Yeah, and very honest, yeah. So these WhatsApp usernames, I actually wrote an article on it. You can find it on the Vision Ireland website. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about them. I'm a bit iffy, like you told me, you know, you reserved your name and all the rest of it. And then I went about reserving my name. But I was also really worried that, like, I mean, it has my full name on it, you know what I mean? I'm wondering, should I change it? You know what I mean? I'm in that kind of in that kind of feeling at the moment, because this is the Catch 22. When I'm in these WhatsApp groups with maybe other parents or other community groups or whatever, there is always a couple of people on the group that you may not want to have your number. And they do have, in fairness, they do have access to your full number if they want it. So this was a solution. I'm just not sure if it's the exact correct solution right now. There might be a different way of giving you some sort of a tag or whatever. But putting in a username, just be careful what it is. And if you don't want your full name, I suppose displayed, you don't have to use it as your display name either, actually. This is just a username that you can share with other people. So keep that in mind as well, but I have mixed feelings about the username and I don't think they have it 100 percent right yet. But I think they're just trying to solve one problem. But in some ways, for some people, they could be creating a bit of an anxiety in another way. But I'm hoping they'll get it right. Yeah, hopefully we will we will wait and see. Come back then to the revoluting. Yeah, I like to sometimes when somebody asks me to pay them money, for example, maybe for a service or maybe a bill or whatever the reason I'd be giving them money and revolution, I'd often say to them, would you do me a favor and send me a request for the money? And then when they send me their request, I can accept it and send it back. So that's one way I sometimes avoid getting because I might have like Amy and a lot of other people, I might have a couple of general points in my contacts just just from slipping up over the years with my 400 contacts. You know what I mean? Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's a great suggestion. I have noticed with Revolut the last little while and I don't know if this is a voice over specific thing. It may well be that when you complete a when you send money from a request, the app tends to kind of lock up and crash. That has happened. That's only happened the last little while. So that may be fixed soon. But it's I do think it's a really solid suggestion, because at least that way, it gives you a little bit more security, which is good, you know? Yeah, it gives you that connection with that person and they haven't sent you any money and you haven't sent them any money until you decide to accept the request and complete the transaction. So, yeah, look, I can see where Amy made a mistake and why. And it's a very easy one to make. And thankfully, she got her money back. So look, it's just like anything. Beware and just be really careful when you're making those transactions. Daniel, you were going to come in there, I think. Yeah, no, it's just I think that the request is very, very solid. And like you, Joe would have several people with very similar names in our contacts list. And you don't want to be sending the wrong one of them money. You might not get it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you will. Sometimes you definitely won't. But yeah, there you go. Thank you so much for that, Amy. A brilliant voice note must be said, really do appreciate that. It's great when we have people sharing those kind of honest perspectives of what's happened to them. And yeah, we really do appreciate it. So thank you so much for that. Another person who has been in touch with us on a totally separate, although also WhatsApp related question. It's our regular Edvard. Edvard had some other unrelated issues with WhatsApp. Here is what's going on for him. There is a current issue I noticed with WhatsApp at the moment. I only notice new messages when I open up the app, otherwise it sends me silent notifications. It works fine on Windows, like the message when the messages come through, it pings and all that kind of thing. But on an iOS device, it's just send me silent treatments basically, if I open up the app. Are any of the listeners noticing this? Thanks so much for the question. To be honest, when I've had this issue before, what I tend to do is I tend to just restart the phone because I find more often than not, it actually tends to be a WhatsApp related issue. Or sorry, a phone related issue as opposed to a WhatsApp related issue. So I would just restart the phone and in most cases that does seem to fix it for me. But I know Joe, you had other advice there as well. Yeah, well, there's a few things as you said, first of all, restart the phone and second as well as make sure the app is updated and that's probably not the problem, but just double check it's updated to the newest version and the other thing, make sure your ringer on the side. If you want one of the newer phones, make sure your ringer isn't set to silent or anything else. But you can hold that down. And then the other thing is your notification alerts. You can go in there to the WhatsApp specific notification alerts and you can double check that deliver silently is not checked because that could be actually tapped from previous time you're in there. So you can go in there, double tap on deliver silently and make sure that it's not selected. And you can go through all your other ringer alerts for WhatsApp as well and you can have it appear on notifications screen or you can change the ringtone for specific people. You can do loads of stuff in there. But anyway, I'd went to the settings area and into WhatsApp and make sure that your notifications are all supposed selected properly. And then after that, do David's suggestion. Secondly, of course, absolutely. There you go. So yeah, hopefully that helps ever. But you know something, Joe, I've noticed of late, so many people are using WhatsApp on the laptops now. I've noticed this even on people calling help desk lately, even friends of mine. It's becoming really common, actually. I think so, yeah, it's it does make sense, I suppose, even on iPads and laptops and whatever, because you don't have to take your hands off the device and you can actually some people love to type messages. So rather than typing on that, some people may call it the bloody touch screen, you know, or dictation. When the dictation goes wrong, that's even more annoying than when such typing goes wrong. So on your touchscreen. So I think when you can type on your computer and type back to your WhatsApp group that you're having lots of conversations with, that's quite handy. And then some people might even use WhatsApp a lot for business. So there's a WhatsApp for business app and you might be chatting with your customers and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I can see the logic behind having it on your laptop makes massive sense to me. There you go. Yeah. For me, I think having it on the laptop, you know, I'd be like, I always want to separate as much as is possible work and like life stuff. I don't use WhatsApp really during the workday. And then, you know, after work, similarly, I won't touch teams, do you know that kind of way? Yeah. But I think just having a nice separation is good there. But yeah, it's nice. Work-life balance. They kind of do. They do. The work-life balance. Hard to come by sometimes, but we make it work. But you know what, I think it's something that I've noticed a lot with people now using WhatsApp on their other devices, be that, as you said, an iPad or a laptop or something like that. So yeah, it's fascinating to see that trend occurring and becoming more prevalent. But yeah, do let us know if you have thoughts on that or any of the topics that we discussed. We'd love to hear from you. You can send us a WhatsApp voice note using the voice message button there in WhatsApp. 086-199-0011. And people are even sending us WhatsApps about WhatsApp. What a world. So there you go. That is our voice notes for this week, but please do get in touch. We would love to hear about all of your goings on as regards to technology. We love hearing from you, so please do reach out to us. But now, moving swiftly on. Last week, Vision Ireland launched our pre-budget submission for 2027. So the pre-budget submission, the budget is obviously announced later in the year, usually in October, and then at that, we basically get a rundown of all of the expected government spending for the next year. This can sometimes include changes to how different taxes work, new social welfare schemes that might be announced, changes to requirements for some other social welfare schemes, as well as some just government initiatives that actually cost money and require resources. It doesn't cover actual, I suppose, non-fiscal government policy, you know, changes to laws or anything as such. It just covers all of the stuff with money involved, basically. And last week, myself and a number of others from the Vision Ireland team, namely our advocacy team, went to Boswells in Dublin. This is a hotel quite near Leinster House, and we were launching our pre-budget submission. We have a number of different asks, and to catch up about what exactly we are asking for, for blind and visually impaired people, and also how you might be able to help and advocate for what matters to you, I caught up with Kevin Kelly and Jamie Miller from the advocacy team to discuss all about it. So today we are launching our pre-budget submission here in Vision Ireland, and we are in Boswells in Dublin, we're near enough to Leinster House, that for those of you listening internationally, is almost like our Irish parliament, kind of where we have our Dáil and our Sianad. There are different levels of government here in Ireland, and we've launched our pre-budget submission today, and I am joined by Kevin Kelly, our head of policy and external affairs, and Jamie Miller, who is a policy officer at Vision Ireland, to go through all of the things that we are asking for. Gentlemen, hello. Good afternoon David. Hello David. So, Kevin, I'll start with you. Do you want to tell us a little bit about some of the things that we're asking for, but also why is Vision Ireland making a pre-budget submission in the first place? Yeah, Vision Ireland for a number of years makes a pre-budget submission on behalf of people who are blind and vision impaired, who use our services. The document that we launched today is a document that has been born from a period of consultation, which would have started back in February of this year, where we surveyed and held workshops with people who are blind and vision impaired to find out what measures that the government needed to introduce in budget 2027, which will be announced in October that would improve their quality of life. We have 13 asks across six government departments, inevitably, not every possible thing that came up in the consultation ended up in the pre-budget submission for a variety of reasons. Some of them are longer term issues that are policy matters that won't be addressed in the budget. And we continue raising those items in various dialogues and forums with ministers, TDs and senators and officials in the coming months, but a big focus on cost of disability. The government has committed to introduce a cost of disability payment. We want that introduced this October, a minimum of 55 euros per week for anyone who doesn't meet the criteria to be allowed to drive. We believe that's a universal non-means tested payment. We raised that this morning at the social protection committee. We also want to see the 400 euro emergency payment that the government had introduced in previous years to address the cost of living reintroduced because they regrettably removed it in the last year's budget. And as we all know, economic circumstances have become more challenging with international events and we want the government to reinstate that payment without delay as well as increasing weekly payments. Another financial ask that's relevant to the minister for finances around the area of increasing the blind person tax credit that's only been raised once in the last 15 years. So it's time that the government did raise that in line with other tax credits initiatives that they have promised to introduce in this year's budget. There's many other areas, but those are the ones that kick the conversation off with David. Absolutely. And it's one of these things that a lot of these things like the, you know, that increase to the blind person's tax credit or like that, you know, change to, you know, the blind pension or whatever the case may be. These aren't things that are going to cost a fortune in the scheme of things. And you know, I think that the need seems obvious for things like that 55 euro a week starting off for cost of disability, because the cost of disability is huge. It is expensive being blind or visually impaired. So this 55 quid a week might not seem like a lot, but it's a start. That's a payment that would be in addition to all of the other supports that do exist. None of those should or will disappear as a result of a cost of disability payment. It's actually an interesting one. The cost of disability payment has been discussed for a long number of years, if not decades. There actually is traction now towards introducing a cost of disability payment. That's for a variety of reasons. The UNCRPD is playing a part in that as well. It's actually interesting from an advocacy perspective that the Indicant report that the government commissioned, not a vision Ireland statistic. This is an independent consultancy report estimated the cost of vision impairment additional to be almost 14,000 euro and that doesn't take into account inflation in recent years. So 55 euro additional per week is not going to address that cost, but we have to start somewhere. It has to be universal, because if you're someone who is fortunate to be in employment, you still face additional costs by the virtue of your disability. So we want to make sure that that is a non-means tested payment. Absolutely. And it's important to point out the reason it's 55 euro currently is that ask is joined up with other organisations such as the Disability Federation of Ireland and such as well. So just to move on, this is a technology podcast. They do pay us here to talk about technology sometimes. We do have some technology related asks in the budget. Jamie, if I turn to yourself, we have an aids and appliances scheme across the country that people can apply for assistive technology. But there are some regions in Ireland that don't receive funding. We want this to change. Absolutely. And this isn't the first time that it has come up. So we've had aids and appliances, the scheme itself has been really fragmented for a number of years. It depends on what area of the country you're in. So in lots of parts of the country, this is working pretty well. So if you have a metal card, the HSE will fund the purchase of say your low vision aid, your magnifier, or even in some cases, the likes of metaglasses and some of those newer technologies. But in say Donegal, Sligo, Lietrum, the South East and also the Midlands, so quite significant parts of the country and those regions. If you have a metal card, you have to fund the purchase of those aids yourself or you have to rely on charitable fundraising as well. So if you can't afford those, then you're going without what are really vital aids to your day to day life. So we're really looking for those to change. Something that would keep the costs down as well and access to technology is a real problem. For a lot of people, just when the costs can get so quickly get into the thousands is whether that tax VAT is paid back or not. So you'd be aware there's a VAT reclaim order and you're able to reclaim your VAT costs in theory. But for a lot of people that can be inaccessible, that can be inconsistent depending on the application and the product you're applying for. So it'd be far simpler as we see it if there was a 0% VAT applied to those specific dedicated devices. At the point of purchase, so that would avoid the need to go back and reclaim. Also if you're paying quite a significant VAT cost upfront, that could be the difference between being able to afford it or not being able to afford it at all. Absolutely. And that's already the case with things like hearing aids and some other medical devices. So it would make sense that if it's the case for hearing aids, well, logically speaking, something like a digital magnifier, which is the blind man's equivalent, shall we say. It would make sense that that would be the case. Absolutely. It makes sense and it's a quick fix and already people are eligible for that reclaim already. So there should be any additional cost. But it's just about making access streamlined and making wider access to people for those technologies as much as possible. And making things more efficient, absolutely. The other thing that we talk about a lot on this podcast and we've talked about a lot in Vision Ireland generally is audio description. We are asking for the establishment of an audio description fund. What way would this work, Kevin, or how would you imagine it working? Yeah, no, the topic of audio description is something that's very close to people who are blind, vision impaired and come up regularly in the dialogue that I referenced earlier in the podcast. So we want the Department of Media to set up a fund specifically to fund audio description. But not only audio description on TV, but right across the board to allow organizations to be able to regularly audio describe arts, culture, sport, all of those things that people hold very close to their heart to open up cultural events to people truly who are blind and vision impaired. So that's something that would be new in Ireland should the government introduce it. And we want to build on the work that we did with Professor Lucia from Dublin City University and the DESI report and the audio description fund is a move coming from that to create greater awareness and to ensure that program makers and people who provide entertainment have the necessary funds to provide audio description to people. So where can people learn more about our pre budget submission and we'll touch on the how people can help out in a minute. But where can people learn more in the first instance? The pre budget submission is available on the Vision Ireland website and I'm sure David you'll do the honor of including it in the show notes, a link in the podcast. I feel obligated now, but yeah. There's no such thing as free appearances on podcasts. And then how can people, if they want to help out with some of these asks or support the cause as such, what should they be doing if they see something here and they're like, yeah, that makes sense. I want to help out. What should they be doing? All politics is local. So contact your local TD Senator, pick out the items that are close to your heart that you want to advocate, that you want to see the government taking action on. Contact them, ask them to submit parliamentary questions, use their voice in their locality to advocate to ministers to see these measures introduced in budget 2027. Kevin, Jamie, thank you so much. Thanks so much to Kevin and Jamie for that. Lots of really interesting asks. Joel, was there anything that was standing out to you, anything that you're kind of looking for from the budget? There's some important stuff and that kind of cost a disability piece, you know, costing or having a disability, it can kind of cost a fortune. Of course it can cost a fortune, David, especially look, I'll advocate for blind people because I am one of those, so every day I'd regard maybe there is an extra couple of costs, whether you're subscribing to a service, could be IRA or maybe getting extra taxis or the fact I can't do all the DIY jobs I'd love to do, I can do the odd one, of course, but if I want to hang a picture or hang a shelf, I'd have to call somebody in and pay them to sixty euros or a hundred euros, depending on who I can get. So there is always those extra bits and bobs that we cannot do ourselves and we do have to pay for. So this cost of disability, yeah, in some ways in my mind it doesn't cost it, in other ways I'll welcome it, but let's hope it does come in with force and give us that little extra, I suppose, few bucks to help us cope with the extra cost weekly. But that's why we have these briefings during the year and any of these consultations. There was a cost of disability consultation from the government, hopefully lots of people took part and gave their opinions and we also had our own consultation. So anytime you see these happen, it's good to take part and give your views because you never know, maybe your opinion, you know, it does matter and if there is a cost out there that they haven't thought of, it could be something that they might take into account or it could be a common denominator between many different people. Also, I do hope when the budget comes that they increase the bands for many different specific blindness allowances, whether it be the blind pension or even the blind welfare allowance. So let's hope we get increased bands for that and our blind tax credit, of course, because I mean, with the cost of living, that's gone up so much in the last few years. We could do that a little bit to help in hand David, I'm sure you'd agree. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you know what's funny? I was in Dublin on Saturday and it's something so simple, right? A very basic day, but just getting a taxi to the train station, getting a taxi then, you know, to where I need to go when I'm arriving in the train station and then doing that journey in reverse, right? That across the day, that's four taxis. If I average that as 20 quid each, right? That's 80 euro that I'm encountering simply because I need to use taxis as a service because I'm visually impaired. And that's a tough, tough pill to swallow, you know, it makes you less likely to say, you know, I'll just go out and do something and have a bit of fun for myself because the extra cost at the end of the day is so much greater. You know, you can't drive home, you know, in the evening. There's so much more of a cost that goes with that on top of all the other things that you mentioned there, Joe, like an iris subscription or like, you know, extra costs for DIY or whatever the case may be, you know. Yeah, I agree, David. Look, all we can do is hope some of our demands are met. It's never the case that all of them are met, but maybe the main ones that are throughout the board, that's all they could do is maybe give to some of those and see how we work from there. Absolutely. For 55 euro a week, that's what they're asking for, for a universal cost of disability payment. And then for all of the all of those kind of blind allowances to be kind of brought in line with one another and match the disability allowance and stuff like that is the general ask there. Do you know that other one that's in there, John, it's worth mentioning and worth being aware of is an audio description fund. I think this could, if implemented properly, be huge. I wouldn't want it to, I suppose, you know, allow other organizations to just say instead of spending our own money on audio description, we'll just spend money from this fund instead. But if this is done in the right way, it could lead to a lot more audio description in Ireland, which will be a fantastic outcome. Yeah. So it's a funny one to wonder, should we be advocating exactly for it from ourselves or should we be relying on our public broadcaster to be looking for that fund as we are paying tax already for a TV license? So, yeah, I'd be hoping whoever the fund is granted to or if there is a fund that they will give plenty of money towards audio description because there definitely isn't enough of it at the moment. We'd be lucky, I suppose, if you find maybe one program in an evening that might have audio description on RTE. I know some of the big maybe programs that everybody's watching, yeah, they do make a good effort at having audio description, but we've highlighted before different areas in RTE and look, maybe include TV3 in that as well that there is not enough audio description out there. And even outside of the television broadcasters, you notice it, you know, like whether it is in theatre or cinemas or sport or whatever the case may be, you either have volunteers or you don't have the, you know, you know, the equipment that's needed. So maybe this fund can go towards actually supplying some of the equipment and those set up costs and actually get the infrastructure done to make this stuff more sustainable in the longer run. I think that will be a massive improvement, but who knows? That's really where I'd see a fund like that being useful, David. As I said, I think the public broadcasters should fund themselves because of all the millions they get in from our TV license, but as you said, the little bits and bobs like whether it's Shamrock Rovers match, the Shamrock Rovers match that they have the extra audio description for the local vision impaired fans or maybe in Croke Park at the bigger games. Those kind of situations, yeah, a fund I'd agree there should be easy to access. And I know they are running sponsorship and different things so far, but yeah, fund would be really welcome in them situations. Absolutely. So yeah, lots of asks, you can find the pre-budget submission on the Vision Ireland website. And just because he asked so, so, so nicely, we will include it in the show notes, as Kevin said as well. So you will be able to find that there. So do be sure to let us know what are the costs that you face? What do you think of our pre-budget submission? And how do you kind of advocate for these things? Is it something you're passionate about? Do you get involved in these things? Are you the kind of person who will contact a politician about a budget thing? We'd love to hear all of your thoughts on all that through a voice message on WhatsApp or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. But now though, it's time to catch up with Daniel for your latest in Talkin' Technology News. So which is your latest Talkin' Technology News? I'm Daniel Dunn. Irish Rail have announced a new assistance booking app launching later this year. The new app will make it easier for passengers to request assistance in advance at Irish train stations and replicates a system already in place in both the UK and Japan. Irish Rail say the platform offer via the app, website or call centre for customers will provide greater visibility across the assistance requests, coordination points and station handovers, helping on board and station teams manage assisted travel more consistently across the network. With Ayrn Road Ayrn handling over 65,000 assisted passenger journeys in the past year and demand continuing to grow, the platform will help streamline the management of requests across stations, teams and multiple coordination points, supporting a more consistent experience for customers who need assistance. The service is being delivered by UK company Transreport. The new service will start rolling out from October and from there it will gradually roll out across the wider Irish Rail network. Mary Considine, CEO of Irish Rail said, improving accessibility to rail services for customers with disabilities important to us. As we expand and develop rail services and capacity nationally, it's our commitment to ensure that year on year more customers can access our services. Rail transport as the backbone of sustainable transport in Ireland must be available to all customers who wish to use it and the experience must be streamlined, consistent and reliable. Introducing a centralized customer assistant management platform will ensure that consistency and reliability and provide an improved service offering to more rail customers. Minister for Transport Darro O'Brien said, I am pleased that the launch of this new app will achieve one of the priority actions under Pillar 5 of the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People that runs from 2025 to 2030. Our ambition under the strategy is that disabled people can participate on an equitable basis as everyone else in all aspects of life by having an accessible, affordable and sustainable transport system. The app complements the other accessibility initiatives under the Public Transport Accessibility Retrofit Programme to ensure that disabled people get equal access to opportunities including education, employment and leisure opportunities. As Minister for Transport my long term goal is to have a transport system whereby disabled people can turn up and go without any barriers and that the new app is an important milestone on that journey. Time will tell if the new access is a success but hopefully this will make the process that little bit easier. If you happen to listen to the podcast in the UK or Japan let us know how you will find the travel assistant system. We would love to hear what we should expect. Send us a Vice Note now using the country code plus 353. In other news this week, Apple is suing OpenAI claiming that OpenAI is stealing Apple's trade secrets. Apple claims that a number of former employees are using knowledge about unannounced Apple products to benefit OpenAI. They claim that some employees did not follow the correct procedures when leaving Apple and even say that some are using authentication glitches to access Apple information on their devices even after leaving. OpenAI make chat GPT and Apple previously had a partnership that allowed Siri to rely on answers from chat GPT. Apple is now moving away from this model and is instead choosing to use Google's Gemini system for a lot of the heavy lifting. Lots of Apple original designers including the famous designer Johnny Ive now work on products for OpenAI and it seems Apple isn't too happy about this fact. Could you ever see an AI device replacing something like your smartphone? Share your thoughts with us now. And now for a look at some of our upcoming technology training events. On the 16th of July we have Zoom training. On the 21st of July we have online banking overview. On the 23rd of July we have talk back on Android. On the 28th of July we have tips on setting your smart device. On the 30th of July we have getting to know meta glasses. And don't forget our technology support hub is on the 31st of July where you can get 15 minutes with an IT trainer. If you are interested in any of these courses please do drop an email to training at vi.ie or if you would like to find out more information on these upcoming events please visit our upcoming events on our website vi.ie under news and events. And finally for now, Tesla were showing off their robot taxi at the National Federation of the Blinds convention in the States earlier this month. The cyber cab has a number of accessibility features including braille on a number of the controls such as those for opening doors and sufficient space for assistance animals such as guide dogs. These robot taxis do not have a steering wheel and are designed to drive themselves but unlike Waymo there has been talk of people being able to actually purchase one of these taxis for themselves. At the moment Tesla are just showing off the technology to blind people. But it continues to show that there is competition in the self-driving car space and this could be a massive enabler for blind people going forward. So would you take a self-driving car? Please do let us know with a WhatsApp vice note. And that's it for now. If you haven't already be sure to subscribe to Talking Technology wherever you get your podcasts and why not share it with your friends in your favourite WhatsApp groups. Remember not to spam people of course though for now it's back to you David. Thanks so much Daniel. Or you could spam people if you wanted to you know. You will be spamming them with a cause which is a good thing I suppose. Is that not how that works Daniel? Plenty of people do it. Yeah, it's a great area David isn't it? Yeah, yeah. You know. Really depends. But there you go. Lots of really interesting stories. Do you know what? I'm really looking forward to this Irish Rail app. Obviously I hope that there won't be any issues around the ability for you to still just you know rock up and get the assistance if you need it. But some people I think in fairness will say well if you go to any of the particularly the smaller stations you don't have that anyway. It's great in the likes of Houston but I think what this will do in particular is probably make access to those smaller stations a lot easier for people. Yeah, I think so. It's great to see this being launched and look I think when speaking to service users all across the country you know one of the biggest complaints they have is with the you know getting getting the assistance and you know so I think that's going to streamline this and as you quite rightly point out you know up the level of service that's coming to the smaller more rural stations which can only be great because you know it encourages people to visit our rural towns and villages as well so it can't be all just going to Dublin and Cork and Limerick and Galway you know. Yeah. To the country. We're lovely down here. There you go. It's true and I think hopefully as well what this will do in the longer term is show the sheer vast scale of people that use that assistance service. They talk about sixty five thousand assistance requests there. That's a lot of people and it just goes to show that the service does get used and hopefully if people keep using these service it gets better resourced in the longer run too which would be great you know. Absolutely. Yeah. I was quite taken aback by sixty five thousand requests you know it shows you know for the services out there and you know where it is working it shows it's being used and brilliant to see it because you know it costs money to set all these programs up and you know obviously if it's if it's going to be the uptake is going to keep growing year on year you know that's money well spent so you know how often we can kind of give a thumbs up to our government and say yeah money well spent here you know. Sure. I think this is I think this is one of those you know and that helps improve accessibility on our public transport system definitely is welcomed. Absolutely. Joe any thoughts on that? Is it something you think you'll be using? Well it is something I think I'll be using because maybe it'll be pushed out and I might have to use it so I'm just hoping it works out and is as successful as it has been in other countries sometimes when things get outsourced they do have their teething problems so let's hope they earn them out as quick as possible but I suppose one of the biggest issues with getting an Irish Rail is they're so busy nowadays that you almost have to book a seat whereas before you could rock up and just I suppose jump on and get a seat you know so that's probably one of the biggest issues and hopefully they're booking a seat will be free not like sometimes when you book on JJ Cavanaugh or some of those other services in that local to me you have to pay four euro even though we're supposed to have free travel so that's that's what I'm hoping that there'll be no cost at all to it either and it's it's something I'm looking forward to checking out the app especially that I'm hoping is really easy to use so that's what we need is an app that's easy to use especially for older people that have not been grew up with smartphones or only taken up smartphones you know I think that that has it has to be easy to use and maybe we would like the national transport hotline they should have one for this as well the 1800 one which helps you book tickets and book your systems as well yeah well they are saying there between they are including a call center in this so that does sound like it's all part of the plan so there is good stuff there so I would be hopeful you know we can be cautiously optimistic I've heard good things about the UK system so that's what I'm choosing to believe for now but we will wait and see yeah just to add there and Joel was saying about the you know the names being booked up and I was on a train out of Cork this weekend wasn't heading to Cropark so but yeah don't drop it in okay don't drop it in every seat has a name over you know and I suppose just we wander down the wonder down the train because one of our one of our crew we had not booked a seat and trying to find one with them so yeah gosh it was the whole length of train every seat name over over it so are the booking number over it so yeah it's it's it's getting it's getting very well used which is great absolutely there you go we also there in the news that we had that really interesting story Apple and open AI they're fighting they're not friends anymore it's all a bit interesting to observe isn't it Joe just to see kind of how these relationships change over time and it's just ultimately at the end of the day it's big companies fighting with big companies it is David and recently open AI had an issue that they weren't making enough money from the Apple deal a while ago because I think Apple were slow on the take up in regards Apple intelligence so they weren't getting what they wanted and now Apple are hitting back because there's some issues there regarding security and people leaving Apple and leaving the door open behind them and different things like that so yeah big companies are fighting it's interesting to watch but I'm just hoping it doesn't affect the quality dash dash we should be should be feeling going forward absolutely yeah because these stuff it is fairly high quality stuff in fairness so yeah interesting one on one to watch for sure and the Tesla cyber cab Joe this being shown off to blind people with Braille on lots of its controls and stuff this sounds really interesting it could be a really good thing in theory in time it is it's the dream for a lot of people are supposed to have your own care and which Elon Musk getting involved there he's had his criticism about in the past and when he took over Twitter as it was called back then he removed the accessibility team but I'm in fairness to him he's rolled this into a convention for the blind over them in America and he can see the quality and the appeal of this so he's introduced lots of different features that suit blind people including room for your guide dog and Braille tactile surfaces and stuff like that but no steering wheel so that's going to be interesting a car with no steering wheel to look at even might treat gunner drivers out on the road that's probably just the only thing but yeah no I'm really looking forward to seeing if this ever does take off the ground do you know Elon Musk it's a funny one and you mentioned X there they actually announced this or they they shared a lot of photos from this event over on X and you know the ironic part is this post obviously you know talking about blind people targeted at blind people no all text in the images at all don't work with a screen reader at all like it's just it's a funny ironical one isn't it it's a funny ironic one yeah I know we got lots of publicity for it but didn't try to include everybody but slipped up in that that department but look what can you do maybe maybe you'll get right next time but it's funny the way Mark Zuckerberg as well made glasses for everybody but then duck been very useful for blind people to measure glasses and he also announced on the internet a couple of weeks ago that they will be freed glasses for all blind veterans and retired people out of the army and stuff you know so it's funny the two richest men in the world are getting involved with this yeah they seem to be big fans of us at the minute which is great you know whether they're you know announcing on their the social media platforms that they own that they're going to have Braille in their in their cars that we can maybe buy in the future or whether they're announcing at the US president's wrestling birthday party that we'll be getting free meta glasses for blind veterans what a world we live in huh very interesting very interesting world indeed and on the meta glasses front Joe we didn't touch on it there in tech news but they're not being all altruistic either they are introducing the meta one subscription um and the meta one subscription uh they're putting some now they're not calling them accessibility features uh but they're putting the conversation assist feature uh behind uh a paywall here at least in some ways this conversation boost uh largely originally being targeted at those with uh hearing challenges yeah um so this is them that people would hear and challenges challenges as well as people with concentration issues because it removes that um noise that's in the background the ambient noise and amplifies the voice of the person that's speaking to you which i think is brilliant it's an absolute fabulous um feature to have in a pair of meta glasses and there has been some people online that said it's almost as good as you're hearing it's still that's just pleasing to hear but then meta one is putting some of this behind the paywall they're giving i think i read it's only three hours a month maybe i'm wrong could be three hours a week i think three hours a month is all you get for um conversation boost or conversation assistant that will um so and then the other the rest of it is being put behind the paywall that sounds a little bit hypocritical to me you know and then the other meta one features they're going to offer technical support to those with premium devices i haven't figured out which devices are premium yet i thought they were all premium because of the price of them but maybe it's the gen 2s or could be the oakley vanguards or something um there might be even the meta optic blazers we spoke about recently but anyway um whatever the premium devices are they're offering some sort of technical support and i thought when you buy a device and maybe the first year or two you might get technical support anyway and there's also um some sort of features you get for instagram facebook and whatsapp but i'm not too worried about those ones because i think they're just features inside the app um but yeah coming back to the glasses i am worried about the subscriptions and you know how i feel about subscriptions david i try to keep them um to the minimum because there's so many of them add up before we know what you could have five to ten and your direct debit is gone out the window before the end of the month but david i'm just hoping that they don't put any of the other great features of the meta glasses behind your subscription it's crazy to think isn't it that let's say someone was using these as an assistive technology in a similar way to use hearing aids could you imagine a world where you're told actually now your hearing aids will only work for three hours and then you have to pay us more it's a weird one um but look meta are to be clear they are saying that these are not accessibility features that they're putting behind the paywall um but it is an interesting one to just observe and see uh you know they're finding a way to monetize it and they've probably been selling these glasses at cost uh over a while so they need to find a way to make money out of them now um so it could be an awkward one do you know yeah i'm sure they've made millions and billions already out of the glasses myself but um they have released three different pairs as we mentioned before um two of them are 309 euros and one is 409 euros something like that um and they're just basically called meta glasses and it's funny that this subscription um feature has coincided with that so we can see clearly from the outside what they're at but um as i said i'm just hoping all the rest of the features will stay free for us because there is some great benefits of having meta glasses for people who like that sort of thing whether you get scene descriptions or you might read it and you get a summary of your post or just listen to your music or get directions all those kind of things so um look we're not going to list them all again david but um i think we will get the idea so we're big advocates of the meta glasses but we there's also a caveat and uh hopefully um that caveat doesn't get unaffordable absolutely time will tell on that uh it's going to be interesting to see as well when they have to compete with the likes of those new glasses from google and samsung and apple and so on so forth so time will tell um but it's certainly one to be aware of and one to watch but hey uh that is all we have for this week thank you so much uh for listening a reminder that if you would like to you can find out more about some of the upcoming courses that we have on the vision ireland website you can go to the upcoming events section there uh where you will find those and you can sign up for any that you're interested in by sending an email to training at vi.ie that's training at vi.ie you can also sign up for our newsletter on the website there as well uh where you will get a handy email every single thursday with all the latest going on in the technology world uh but for now though that is our show thank you so much for listening we'll be back in two weeks time for another episode uh but for now stay safe and we will see you really really soon thanks for listening to the talking technology podcast with vi labs if you'd like to support our show please visit vi.ie slash donate talking technology is proudly sponsored by ia labs the market leader in digital accessibility services ia labs digital inclusion your legal obligation you