Watch them or they will renege on their promise of disability rights
They are trying to weasel out of their commitment to a rights-based Disability Bill. Worse still, they might get away with it unless the media sits up and takes notice.
On July 15 the Taoiseach met the Disability Legislation Consultative Group (DLCG). This was the group established by the Government to consult with the whole disability movement after the fiasco of the Government's last Disability Bill, which contained no rights whatever and tried to prevent people with disabilities ever being able to go to court in pursuit of decent services. The group presented a strong report to Government calling for rights-based legislation and it was that report the Taoiseach discussed with them.
The Irish Examiner the following morning was unequivocal. Niall Murray's piece was headed "Ahern says Disability Bill will be rights-based" and he reported that the Taoiseach had said, firmly, that "he is committed to rights-based legislation".
Last week, however, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte got an unsolicited letter from the Taoiseach (a highly unusual event in itself). The letter referred to the Taoiseach's meeting with the DLCG, which had taken place six weeks previously. He told Pat Rabbitte that "it was the Government's intention that the proposed legislation would put the best possible arrangements in place for people with disabilities".
"However," he went on, "the emphasis on the issue of 'rights' can, in my own view, become over-simplistic when represented in terms of an individual's access to the courts on a specific issue. A focus on the extent to which particular legislative proposals meet an abstract criterion of 'rights-based' may not advance a proper and critical view of the services that should be in place and how they should work."
Although the letter went on to talk about the Government's commitment to significant improvements, and an "ultimate" right of access to the courts, there were two things about the letter that were very strange.
Firstly, why was it written, six weeks after a meeting that had been widely publicised?
Secondly, why the peculiar language about the undesirability of too much focus on "an abstract criterion of rights-based"? And what's abstract about rights-based, anyway?
The mystery was easily cleared up. The letter was dated August 26. On the same day, the Irish Independent carried an article on the feature page written by Junior Minister Willie O'Dea, the man responsible for introducing the bill. One glance at this piece and it was immediately clear that the Government was preparing the ground for the abandonment of a proper rights-based bill.
I don't have the space to go into that article in it is entirety here. It is a masterpiece of spin, fudge and specious premises, but its overall intent is clear. Let me give you a flavour.
The article starts off with a simple, clear (and entirely misleading) statement: "In 1997 Fianna Fáil committed itself to introducing legislation for people with disabilities."
Actually, they didn't. In 1997 they promised to "support the development of equality legislation" which had already been enacted and to "support the introduction of disability-proofing legislation".
What's covered up by this sentence, and not referred to anywhere else in the article, is what Fianna Fail promised in the last election, in 2002.
Then they promised "to complete consultations on the Disability Bill and (to) bring the amended bill through the Oireachtas during 2002 and include provisions for individual rights of assessment, appeals, provision and redress".
Not only was it in the 2002 manifesto, but almost exactly the same promise was contained in the programme for government they negotiated with the PDs. The date of 2002 was removed from the programme for government, but otherwise the changes were minor.
O'Dea goes on to say in his article that the original bill had been criticised on the basis of a very narrow interpretation of "rights-based" according to him "this interpretation said that if a person with disabilities did not get what they considered the appropriate redress from the State then they would be entitled to go to court and have a judge assess both needs and delivery. In essence, the amount the State spent each year on disabilities would be decided by the courts".
And, he says, any proposal that was not "rights-based" in this extremely narrow sense would be extremely useless.
This is just an exercise in setting up an easy target. No one in the disability movement has such a narrow interpretation of rights. They see it in plain English and based on the entire history of the movement either you have a right to services, or you depend on charity and wait at the end of a long queue.
Mr O'Dea's next big announcement is that he has looked all around the world and lo and behold no one else has rights-based legislation either. Naturally, he mentions a few countries that suit his argument though he even gets that wrong. He ignores the rights-based legislation in Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and the US. He ignores the EU commission's decision to offer "support for a United Nations legally-binding instrument to protect and promote the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities" communicated to the European Council of Ministers and the European Parliament in January this year.
He ignores the significant work going on in the UN to seek to develop such an instrument and to move towards what the UN calls "a rights-based perspective on disability".
So what is the minister going to do? He makes it plain in the article and this is the clincher. People with disabilities will be assessed and then "deciding officers" will decide whether they get the services they need. If the person with a disability isn't happy, they can go to an "appeals officer". But both of these gentlemen "will not be allowed to take their decisions in a vacuum. They will have to take things as the availability of resources and staff into account".
That's it in a nutshell. You'll get your rights if we have the resources.
If not, the deciding officers, the appeals officers and ultimately the courts will have to take our difficulties into account, not yours.
This outcome, according to O'Dea, will amount to the most advanced legislation anywhere. But who is he trying to kid? We know full well that as long as the situation of people with disabilities depends exclusively on the "availability of resources and staff", they will get whatever pleases the Government of the day. In last year's budget that amounted to a large round zero.
The thing about Willie O'Dea is actually fairly simple. He thinks people with disabilities, and their families, and the people who represent them, are stupid.
They've had a lifetime of being grateful for whatever they can get and they're easily conned. It's time he got over it. If he can't achieve rights-based legislation because of the selfishness of his own government, he should admit it.
He should stop trying to sell us charity and pretending it's rights.
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