Republican News · Thursday 7 August 2003

Disabled secure rights at last

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

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Few people around the world would have suspected that Irish disabled people were ever treated with anything other than respect in their own land. Home to the Special Olympics, the country pulled out all the stops to ensure that its guests were looked after like heroes when they arrived and that the Games went off without a hitch. The booing received by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Opening Ceremony was indicativ, however, of the discontent felt by Irish disabled people and their families towards the government.

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What we as a society need to ask is why should any vulnerable group in our midst have to fight for basic human rights?

A legal dilemma

The problem lay in the fact that the 26-County government had been going out of its way to ensure that disabled people throughout the South hadn't a legal leg to stand on when it came to securing their rights.

In 2002, the government made a half-hearted attempt at a disability bill, but this had to be scrapped weeks before the general election because campaigners were outraged that it prohibited disabled people from pursuing their needs for essential services in the courts.

Article 47 of the Bill stated that nothing in the act would allow civil action to be taken if a public body failed to comply with any duty imposed on it under the Act, or affect the extent to which breach by a public body of an existing statutory duty was actionable.

In 2002, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights noted the "persistence of discrimination against persons with physical and mental disabilities, especially in the fields of employment, social security benefits, education and health". Amnesty International pointed out that the Dublin government was persistently discriminating against disabled people, saying that in relation to the binding norms of international law that it voluntarily signed up to, the government's treatment of people with disabilities was completely unacceptable.

After they told the government where to stick their Bill, disability groups stepped up the pressure on Leinster House to come up with the goods. The Forum of People with Disabilities, one of the eight major disability support bodies that comprise the Disability Legislative Consultative Group, met repeatedly with the government to clarify the government's position on a rights-based bill. Forum director Mary Keogh was reported as saying,, "we want our rights - and an enforcement mechanism to ensure that they are achievable".

But the government, with persistent ignorance, made its attitude towards rights-based disability legislation evident again in June 2003, when a spokesperson for Junior Minister Willie O'Dea made a controversial comment saying - "The problem is you are talking about a huge amount of money in legal fees which could be used to provide services" - implying that legal comebacks should not be available to the disabled.

Would you take a compromise?

O'Dea then suggested that a compromise, involving an independent appeals mechanism similar to the Equality Tribunal, could be reached. The tribunal would be headed up by an ombudsman, he said.

However, Donal Toolan of the Forum of People with Disabilities ruled this out, saying the powers of the Equality Authority were too easily eroded. He said the powers of the Ombudsman had also been interfered with by the political process this year.

Disability groups also criticised cutbacks in funding. "There's a gap between the money the government supply and the money needed to satisfy the demand. They're happy to have that gap. They're happy because as far as they're concerned, there is such a thing as an acceptable level of misery," Seamus Greene of the Irish Autism Alliance argued.

The National Association of the Mentally Handicapped in Ireland (NAMHI) was also up in arms, saying that the 2,500-strong waiting list for day, respite and residential care would continue to grow because of government cutbacks. It said the situation was particularly worrying for elderly parents who have to care for disabled sons and daughters.

"We now know that school leavers with disabilities will have no training or workshop places come this September, and will face the prospect of sitting at home," said general secretary Deirdre Carroll.

Since 1997, § 188 million had been invested in services for people with intellectual disabilities. Disability groups said many of the 350,000 people with general disabilities had benefited from the improved services, which were now on the verge of being taken away again.

"You can't undo what's being done. If people no longer have services, they regress. That's wasteful and it's waste being triggered by the people in finance who keep talking about value for money," said John Dolan of the Disability Federation of Ireland.

He added that many of the cutbacks were almost invisible "People are being asked to take less of the same home help, for example. If they're getting ten hours a week and that drops to five, it isn't seen. It's not like the wing of a hospital closing, which you can show people," he said.

Forced into a corner

Then, two weeks ago, in a massive U-turn (probably due to being stuck under an international microscope during the Special Olympics), the government announced that new disability legislation was being introduced.

Under the new bill, Irish disabled people will be entitled to take legal action where services are not being provided by the State.

When it is enacted, possibly in November, the law will have an impact on access to all kinds of public services, including transport, environment, social welfare, health and education. It will provide for independent assessment of needs, a right of appeal against decisions, with an officer to enforce appeals through the courts if necessary, and ultimate access to legal remedies where other enforcement mechanisms have not worked.

The government has also allocated § 50 million for improved services for disabled people, which would seem to be the icing on the cake, if media reports were anything to go by.

However, Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, while welcoming the § 50 million allocation, has pointed out that the government is still adopting a piecemeal approach to funding.

"It must not be forgotten that people with disabilities had to protest before, during and after the Special Olympics to demand that the shortfall in funding be addressed urgently by the government," he said. "As a result of the political pressure they have now relented. It shows a piecemeal and unplanned approach which must be replaced with properly planned funding based on the real needs of people with disabilities and in full consultation with their representative organisations."

The Forum of People with Disabilities also welcomed the government's announcement of funding, but Mary Keogh said "we must be clear that at present, there are no accepted standards existing in the delivery of services for disabled people.

"We are calling that any further money that is invested into disability services must be linked with disabled people's participation in their choice of delivery, and that disabled people receive real value for money."

A happy ending?

So with two pieces of legislation offered by the Dublin government, (the second relating to education for people with disabilities), and a § 50 million injection into much-needed services, does this mean that there is a happy outcome for Irish disabled people?

Well, not quite. There are more than 350,000 disabled people in Ireland, 280,000 of whom are in receipt of rigid and inequitable income support and, for all disabled people, mainstream society continues to be inaccessible and unwelcoming. As Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Mary Keogh correctly point out, any input to the area is gratefully received, but the government seems to be adopting a quick fix mentality to get the spotlight onto something else.

The new legislation, if enacted as promised, will help disabled people take control over their own lives, but it is not entirely comprehensive, and in the end only leaves disabled people in a better position to fight for their rights.

What we as a society need to ask is why should any vulnerable group in our midst have to fight for basic human rights? Only when we have answered that question can disabled people in Ireland be sure that their rights will be a given.