Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I hope the Government will have the consideration not to guillotine the Bill, which it intends to do, as I read on the draft Schedule for next week. If it does not do so, it will allow all the time we need to make all relevant points. We tried to impress this point on the Government on Second Stage and Committee Stage but, so far, it has not listened. I will have to repeat the point ad nauseam until it listens.

I want to tidy up one or two points. I referred to commitments to which the Government signed up, including EU equality directives and the European Convention on Human Rights, which tie in to the reason rights-based legislation is needed. The former Minister of State with responsibility in this area, Deputy Mary Wallace, established the disability legislation consultation group in 2002, at the time of the previous Bill. That was thought to be a brilliant development. It was thought that the Government had, at long last, listened and then withdrawn the Bill, and that it would come back with rights-based legislation because that was the basis on which the previous Bill was withdrawn. The Government did not do so and that is why we are trying to ensure that the Bill is rights-based.

A number of groups — the Forum for People with Disabilities, the National Association for People with Intellectual Disability and the National Parents and Siblings Alliance — have recently withdrawn from the Government's consultation group precisely because the tenor of my amendment has not been delivered. In keeping with the proposed amendments and lobbying of the groups, I hope the House will adopt some of the amendments I have put forward.

The Bill and its Long Title are fundamentally flawed because a reference to rights or a right to equal participation is not included. I will return to other issues during discussion of other amendments. It is a pity that on Committee Stage and during this Report Stage debate we will not be able to debate many of the amendments which would make these rights——

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