Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We absolutely and utterly support the resolution before us and we welcome this final step of the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I do not wish to sound a discordant note on this, but I do not feel there is a strong sense of history about this moment because there was an opportunity here for the Minister of State to outline some vision for the legislation that will be required to give force to this ratification. Like previous speakers, I wish to state the Disabilities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which we know passed Second Stage last February and is now stuck on Committee Stage, is long overdue and needs to be brought into law and made a reality. Already we have disabled people speaking to us, and I will quote from an email I received today, which stated that while the Government is trying to create a smokescreen to make itself look good, people with disabilities are struggling just to exist in an Ireland that makes no room for them.

The email states that the members of this Government are trying to pretend that when they move on, they will have left a legacy of equal treatment of people with disabilities, that the latter continue to be denied liberties and rights that everyone else enjoys and that this is why, as well as ratifying the convention, the Government needs to legislate against the deprivation of liberty in order that there can be real change in how people with disabilities are treated in this country.

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