Three groups withdraw from Disability Bill consultation forum

THREE disability groups have pulled out of a consultation forum because of the Government’s failure to take any account of their wishes in the controversial new Disability Bill.

The Forum for People With Disabilities, the National Association for People with an Intellectual Disability (NAMHI) and the National Parents and Siblings Alliance (NPSA), have agreed their core needs are not being addressed in the bill which has gone through committee and is due for report stage in the Dáil.

This is the second Disability Bill in four years to provoke outrage among disability groups.

All three are leading members of the Disability Legislation Consultation Group (DLCG), which represents 550 organisations and was set up by the Government to ensure consultation and make proposals on the bill which was announced by the Government last September.

Yesterday, NPSA director Seamus Greene said that Equality Minister Frank Fahey’s attitude to the DLCG was not dissimilar to Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘out, out, out’ speech during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations.

“We had five issues that were very important to us and that needed modification, and we were just told ‘no, no, no’, and then a maybe for the least important issue. The Government are not consulting with us. They aren’t even interested in formulating compromises,” said Mr Greene. NAMHI said the bill was fundamentally flawed because instead of enforceable rights, disabled people would only have a right of assessment of needs without a guaranteed right to required services.

According to the DLCG, the most important omissions in the bill include a disabled person’s unequivocal right to an independent assessment, the fact services identified as necessary following the assessment don’t have to be provided for within a reasonable and agreed timeframe, and the failure to ring-fence funding for disability.

They have also called for Government departments’ sectoral plans to incorporate the needs of people and they want this incorporated into the bill. “The Government has refused to move on these points, and would make no commitment to consider creating any statutory duty. We need rights to be based in legislation. They are telling us to trust them but we have seen time and time again that what is promised does not necessarily materialise,” said NAMHI chief executive Deirdre Carroll.

According to the three groups, they will continue to fight for improvements to the Disability Bill outside the DLCG.

“The fight is not over, not by far. The Government weren’t listening to us within the DLCG, but we will continue to fight for equality outside the group. We’re not asking for a blank cheque but some guarantees that people will eventually get the services they need,” said Ms Carroll.