Government must deliver on promise

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern is to be commended for spearheading the Government’s U-turn on the vexed issue of the rights of disabled people.

Doubtless he was also mindful of the Government’s embarrassing climbdown last year when it scrapped the controversial Disability Bill prohibiting disabled people from pursuing their needs for essential services in the courts. In preparing its new bill, the Coalition had stuck by this negative policy. Despite suggestions an ombudsman might be appointed, there was no move to grant disabled people access to the courts to enforce rights to which they are entitled as citizens.

If it required a burst of booing at the Special Olympics, an ordeal no politician would relish, to convince the Taoiseach to alter the Coalition’s approach to this question, then so be it.