Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Government is running an advertising campaign to highlight the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It tells us that disability rights are human rights. It goes on to state, "Everyone in Ireland has a role in advancing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities." I really cannot imagine a more tone-deaf marketing slogan. That is all it is; a slogan. Disability rights are not rights people can exercise in Ireland. The only people who can do anything about advancing legal entitlements under the UN convention are the Taoiseach and his Government. The Government writes policy, has responsibility for providing services, allocates funding, sets recruitment targets and controls capacity. It is the Government's job to ensure no child is left behind and that every child has access to a timely assessment of need, appropriate services and educational supports.

The Government is failing on all counts. I should not need to remind the Taoiseach that disability services are on their knees. Rights are entirely notional. They exist on paper and in Government advertising jingles but not in reality. A total of 16,522 children are currently waiting for their first appointment with children's disability network teams. More than 10,000 of them have been waiting for over a year, with no intervention and no therapy. More than one third of posts in children's disability network teams are vacant. In some teams, vacancy rates are more than 60%. Because of this, some children wait for years for any supports at all. Then the parents of those children turn on the radio and hear they are responsible for advancing rights under the convention. It really is disgraceful.

What was left out of the Government's advertising campaign is that it has not signed up to the part of the convention that would actually allow people to exercise their rights. The programme for Government commits to signing and ratifying the optional protocol to the convention. We are three years into the Government's term and we do not have a date for ratification. Ratifying the optional protocol would enable disabled people to make complaints to the UN about breaches of their rights under the convention.

To make matters even worse, in response to my parliamentary question - I could not actually believe my eyes - the Minister informed me that the Government has spent €1.5 million on this essentially false advertising campaign. To put that €1.5 million in perspective the Government allocated just €64 million in the budget for additional disability services. Meanwhile, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, recently published a road map for children's disability services that is increasingly looking like it will be the road to nowhere with no additional budget. Does the Taoiseach accept that the Government has responsibility for ensuring people's rights under the convention? When will the Government ratify the optional protocol? When will the road map for disability services get a budget?

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