John Carty (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I propose to share time with Deputy Tony Dempsey.

I commend my colleague, the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, for his work on this Bill and on the national disability strategy prior to his recent and long overdue promotion. I pay tribute to my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Fahey, who has been engaged in ensuring that those working in the sector, in addition to those with disability, continue to be involved.

In 1997 Fianna Fáil committed itself to introducing legislation for people with disability. Legislation published before the last general election contained much that was modern, innovative and radical. While it substantially improved the position of people with disability, it attracted a firestorm of criticism and was withdrawn. The two principal difficulties were that it did not provide for an independent assessment of need or for a right of redress. The withdrawn legislation gave a right to assessment, but it was to be conducted by the body that would deliver the service. The suspicion was that the assessment would be influenced by the fact that the organisation assessing the need would ultimately have to bear the cost of delivering the service.

This new legislation will provide for an independent assessment of need by the health board. It will establish a body to ensure that the assessment is genuinely independent. This body will set standards. It will also provide training for those assessing need. This is a very positive development for those with disability in our society. I stress that the system being put in place will be genuinely independent and will be constantly monitored to ensure this. Persons living in a particular health board area will not have their needs assessed by the same health board.

This does not mean that specialists, such as physiotherapists and child psychologists will work exclusively on assessing need. As everybody knows, there is a severe shortage of people with these skills. Critics of this Bill would do well to take a long-term view of the issue. With the best will in the world, we cannot train and roll out extra numbers of trained individuals to work in this area overnight. It will take time and patience. That might not be much help to the people out there. However, these are the facts, and we should face the facts.

Another aspect of the Bill that is worthy of praise is the provision for redress. The withdrawn legislation was criticised for not being rights based. This criticism was based on a very narrow interpretation of the term "rights based". This interpretation was that if a person with disability did not get what he or she considered appropriate redress from the State he or she should be entitled to go to court and have a judge assess both needs and delivery of service. In practical terms this would mean that the courts could decide on the amount the State spent each year on disability. A significant percentage of overall disability expenditure would be swallowed up by legal fees and would, therefore, not improve the lives of people with disability. Furthermore, professionals and the courts would allocate resources without reference to the Oireachtas or the availability of resources. Disability groups were widely consulted in the drafting of the Bill, which is a sign of this Government's commitment to improving the lives of those with disability. However, the Government is unable to write a blank cheque. Money must be accounted properly. A rights-based approach as described is not in place anywhere in Western Europe, including those countries which are more socially advanced than Ireland, for example, Sweden, The Netherlands and France. The same applies to Australia and America.

In recent years tremendous amounts of money have been provided by this Government and by the previous Government. In 1997 there were only 100 resource teachers for children with special needs. There are now in excess of 2,000 resource teachers in the primary system.

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