Disability Strategy - Disabled people deserve equal rights

It amounts to simple justice that the Government accede to the demands of the national organisation representing all people with disabilities that a single authority be established to overcome the intolerable regime to which they are subjected.

Such an authority should be the pivotal point of the “root and branch” review of State disability services which People with Disabilities in Ireland (PwDI) chairman Nigel Brander, advocated over the weekend.

His voice now carries the weight of the International Federation of Persons with Physical Disability (FIMITIC) of which he was elected president at a conference in Switzerland. This high-profile position affords him an international platform to highlight the injustices facing those with physical disabilities.

Whatever largely specious arguments the Government may ventilate regularly, claiming the adequacy of resources provided, it is unconscionable that considerable funding allocated specifically for services for physically disabled people should be returned to central government.

In a country where government departments are consistently and shamelessly profligate with public money, local authorities this year handed back €17.6 million to the Department of the Environment.

That unspent money was validly earmarked for the Disabled Persons and Essential Repairs grants in 2004, and the fact that it was not used for that purpose represents a gross negligence and indifference to the rights of those people. Crucially, it would have allowed an extra 1,000 homes to be adapted for disabled people throughout the country.

This Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition has adamantly refused to establish in law the rights of those with physical disability to have access to services they need. Quite simply, economic factors are prioritised to deny them rights which could be sustained by a court of law. The Government has described the Disability Act 2005, which recently came into effect, as “evidence of this Government’s commitment to a more inclusive society for people with disabilities”.

By contrast, Nigel Brander this weekend, before an international audience, charged that Ireland is still a “ferociously unequal society” for people with disabilities. The Government’s claim is a cynical contention, spuriously grounded in nothing that relates to the actual reality of the situation. For instance, under that law, it could be another 10 years before all State buildings are refitted and become fully accessible to disabled people.

An extreme example is contained in the latest report from the Health Research Board which shows there are 2,270 people with intellectual disabilities without services, or a major element of a service, such as residential or day service.

The argument for a single coordinating authority is logical. There are 400,000 people with disabilities in this country, and practically every government department has a role in some way or another in the funding of disability services and supports.

They all work disparately, and consequently an ineffectual and inferior service is delivered to those who are entitled to a standard vastly superior to what they are receiving at the moment.

The fact that local authorities witlessly denied them grants to affect invaluable home adaptations by failing to pay out almost €18m they were entitled to, is a glaring illustration of that.