Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I spent the bulk of my contribution last night analysing the Bill and trying to outline the sense of disappointment felt by the disability advocacy groups when the Bill was published to the House and the Government in particular. These groups were let down by a broken promise.

The previous Disability Bill was withdrawn because of the pressure brought by disability groups which expected a rights-based Bill. When a consultation system was put in place, people, particularly the advocacy groups, believed that glaring deficiency would be addressed with new legislation. After two years of so-called consultation which conveniently allowed the Government to get beyond the local and European elections, the submissions and the acknowledgement of the good work done by advocacy groups, families and friends of people with disabilities and people with disabilities themselves, the Bill that was published again failed to recognise the principle of rights-based legislation.

The advocacy groups' position was both reasonable and measured. They acknowledged that it would take some time for the various services that were needed to appear, for example, speech therapy, motivation therapy, family supports, placement in residential situations and day care. There was an understanding in the dialogue that took place over the two years that it would take time to develop these services. However, the groups believed that once the principle of rights was agreed, a partnership approach to the delivery of that right could be agreed. Nobody expected the services to be introduced overnight. They expected, however, that the old attitude of tokenism towards people with disabilities would be dispensed with and that the vindication of citizenship would be provided through rights enshrined in legislation and would be worked through on a structured basis over time. The Government, after perpetrating a con-job, rejected that core principle and decided to perpetuate a culture of dependency and charity. It is shameful that after all the consultation, dialogue, submissions and the passage of so much time, we are back to that type of approach. It is particularly shameful given that Ireland has never been wealthier or better able to help people with disabilities enjoy full citizenship.

Every Deputy has been inundated with views of people with disabilities, their carers and their advocates. Nobody can doubt the sense of betrayal felt by these people. In my constituency, the Wexford Centre for Independent Living and the Gorey Centre for Independent Living have written regularly to Wexford Deputies and, I think, to Deputies across the political and geographical spectrum. People like Kenneth Kilduff in Gorey, who has a disability himself and is a regular advocate for the disabled, has been consistent in his demands for rights-based legislation over the years. He was led to believe that this Bill would meet his objectives. People with disabilities, their carers and their advocates are unanimous in calling for this Bill to be scrapped and the core principle of rights to be restored.

We should build up services, identify individual need and provide the assessment of the individual with a clear promise that over a fixed and understandable timeframe, those needs will be met on a case-by-case basis. We should build real partnership, rather than the pretence of partnership, between service providers and the State and people with disabilities.

I will use the remaining time to address an issue of mental health, which is of critical concern in my constituency. I speak particularly about the appalling deficiencies in the adolescent psychiatric services in County Wexford. I have here some of the individual case files of desperate young people who cannot get psychiatric assessment. It is because of a lack of resources rather than a lack of enthusiasm within the limited resources that are present, which are being stretched to the limit. Were the Minister of State to read these files he would know that the current adolescent psychiatric service is limited to under 17s who are suicidal or psychotic. That is the extent of it. There are no evaluations in the educational context. It is no exaggeration to say that only a bare fire brigade service is available to those who have real need.

Families are at their wits' ends. We can afford to do better and have a moral obligation to do so. If we do not provide psychiatric supports to people who are vulnerable at that critical stage of development, the cost to the State, not to mention the cost to the families and individuals, will be greater in the long term.

I ask the Minister of State to have particular regard for the development of adolescent psychiatric services across the country. The model of best practice is there but its delivery is excruciatingly slow, particularly in County Wexford. So as not to invade the privacy of the individuals who are in situations of desperate need but have no services, I will not put their cases on record. However, I ask the Minister of State to take note of this critical deficiency in County Wexford. It may be replicated elsewhere but I will personally and trenchantly bring to the Minister of State the cries of the individual families and the needs that have been identified by both service providers and these families seeking those services.

Mental health is one issue. We must provide decent mental health services across the country. We must progress the provision of the acute psychiatric admission wards in our general hospitals that we promised but in which we are making painfully slow progress. However, these are only parts of the matrix of providing a service to all the variously abled and disabled people in our community to allow an end to the old notions of charity and dependence that have characterised our reactions to the disabled until now and to begin a new chapter of recognising the rights of all citizens to participate to the fullness of their abilities. This legislative measure fails that principal test and I ask the Minister of State at this 11th hour to hear the voices of those directly concerned, the disabled, their carers and their advocates, and to address the fundamental issue at the core of this to provide rights-based legislation for those in need.

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