New policy needed on disability

WHILE I welcome the recent Disability Bill, the bottom line still remains: services for disabled people will be dependent on available resources. As we all know, ministers allocate resources according to their perceived priorities.

When Irish society fully recognises that people with disabilities have the same wants, needs and desires as everybody else, then we will have truly come in from the margins.

I feel strongly that all people with a handicap have a right to be treated as individuals. In addition, they also have the right to participate in normal patterns of life within the community, in the least restrictive environments appropriate to their needs.