Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The value of social partnership is that those within the process can bring forward their own ideas and initiate change in areas where they desire it. All the other social partners, based on the necessary consensus that has operated for almost 19 years, try to have a major input into policy. Across a host of areas, including the national anti-poverty strategy, social housing, legislation and labour market initiatives, that happens year in and year out. That is why such qualitative progress has been made in this country over those 19 years, whether in welfare, child care or any other area. I accept that, by and large, those organisations lobby continually and work to see change. When they have a series of benchmarks or recommendations in one period which are fulfilled, they seek to stretch them further. That is the nature of such organisations, and I would be surprised if they did anything else. They try to achieve a certain standard before moving on to another and getting more resources for their areas of interest. The majority of organisations would subscribe to this and then point out the areas in which they seek further progress. That is the nature of how the system operates.

I do not disagree with the Deputy on the Disability Bill 2004. I have been involved in that debate for many years, and this legislation provides an enormous number of areas and ways in which people in this country will make progress. The Bill far surpasses what is available in other countries. I know of the ongoing argument about rights-based and resource-based laws, but no such legislation exists anywhere in the world. The Disability Bill 2004 is far in advance of that. More importantly, resources have been made available up to 2009 to back it up, and one hopes that will continue thereafter.

I know that the lobby is seeking to secure a ring-fenced legislative resource base. Since 1921, we have never done that in this country, and I do not see it happening now, since we will not take that route. We shall continue to try to improve the Bill, and the great number of amendments proves that. Not that long ago we had approximately 34 issues, but I believe that we are now down to five. However, I will answer in detail the questions raised by the legislative disability group to assure it of our position. Last week there was a statement by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, regarding resources. People rightly want to know from the statement of practices that resources will be made available so that such things become a reality, and the Government intends to do that. We want to work with groups in the area to build on the high base we now have regarding disability resources. We will continue to build on that for the future. In regard to those aspects which are legislation-based, we will build on the legislation to the extent that we can.

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