Justice Flood pleads with Government to scrap Disability Bill

RETIRED High Court Judge Fergus Flood last night pleaded with the Government to scrap the Disability Bill, which is due to complete all stages through the Dáil today.

Justice Flood has chaired the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities.

Mr Justice Flood said the Government could still withdraw the bill, which he said was flawed, and replace it with one which would equalise the situation between disabled people and everybody else.

He said: “This bill fails in that, an opportunity lost.”

Speaking at a protest meeting in Limerick called by the Limerick Parents and Friends of the Mentally Handicapped, he said: “If they are going to legislate, let them legislate properly.”

Mr Justice Flood said his commission’s report to the Government stated that a rights-based bill was crucial.

He said: “If the act does not have a rights issue in it, it is a useless piece of legislation. That was set out in the terms of our report. A key recommendation, and I use that term deliberately, in our report, called for the introduction “as a matter of immediate priority” of a Disabilities Act, which sets out the rights of people with disabilities and means of redress for those whose rights are denied.”

“It is a major disappointment. It is a major flaw in the law, that the rights issue is not enshrined in the bill,” he said.

All the main opposition parties were represented at last night’s meeting.

However, Labour TD Kathleen Lunch and Fine Gael TD David Staunton said they could not give a written pledge requested by the meeting’s organisers that they would replace the current bill with a rights-based one if their parties form the next government.

But they did make commitments, that if in government, they would prioritise a review of the Disabilities Act, which Mr Staunton said excluded more than it included.