Derek McDowell (Labour)

I agree with much of what Senator Leyden said and I want to address a couple of the points he made. He stated this issue has slipped down the list of political priorities in the sense that it has not been mentioned at any length in either House in recent months. It is approximately one year since my party put down a Private Members' motion in the Lower House on it. The reason is that there has been a lengthy, complex and consultative process under way which has resulted in a broad degree of consensus, to which we are party, on the way forward. All of us want to see the required degree of service provided within a reasonable time. The whole area of disability is one in which there is a broad political consensus. All of us agree there must be an independent assessment of needs, that people need to agree the services with which they will be provided, that there should be an appeal mechanism in the event there is no agreement and so on and that there should be some means of implementing the schedule of services when it is agreed and set out.

The difficulty arises with the so-called "rights based" approach. In a sense, the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, put his finger on it. Having gone through a lengthy description of what will be in the Bill, he then used the crucial phrase "within available resources". That is where the critical breakdown of consensus arises. It is important for us to be clear about what that means. When we and the various advocacy groups talk about a rights based approach, we mean that, ultimately, if a service provider, a Department or whatever is unable or refuses to implement the assessment of needs which has been agreed or set out, then the individual has the right to go to court to have it implemented or to get recompense if it is not implemented. In essence it means that if we are to accept an individual has that right within certain constraints — I agree time should be given to the service provider — we must give an absolute priority to this issue. Interestingly, Senator Leyden said just that at the end of his contribution. We must say that come what may, whether there is an economic downturn or whether resources are less plentiful than in the previous year, we will fulfil our obligation to these citizens who have particular needs.

The Minister of State said it was not the tradition in jurisdictions with a common law background. In a sense that is nonsense because there are recent examples where the political will has existed and the money has been committed in advance and spent. During the tenure of the former Minister of State in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy O'Donnell, the Government decided to agree to multi-annual budgeting for overseas development aid. The essence of the agreement was that the amount provided year on year would be agreed three years in advance. It was delivered because the political will existed to do so. That agreement held, notwithstanding the fact that towards the end of that time there was something of an economic downturn.

That is what is required of Government in these circumstances. The Government is being asked to say that, as a matter of priority, the funding will be made available for a set period into the future to meet the needs and rights of these citizens. We are not asking it to make some great leap into the unknown and to do something which was hitherto unknown in our law because, frankly, I do not accept that argument. We are asking it to find the money. It is not a bottomless pit; we are not talking about a huge amount of money. We do not have a complete database of physical and sensory needs but we have a good idea of what is required in the area of intellectual disability, for example. A national intellectual disabilities database has been in place for some years. It has made a careful assessment of the requirements of people with intellectual disabilities. We know, roughly speaking, the number of day, respite and residential care places needed. That is a quantifiable need in that the analysis has been done and we know what is required.

I am not one of those, particularly when talking about the health service, who likes to say Government has failed absolutely, that nothing has been done and nothing has been achieved. It is right to acknowledge that during the tenure of the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Cowen, progress was made and that the Department is, or certainly was at that time, seized of the issue. The assessment was done and the need was identified. It knew the number of places needed. Progress was being made in making places available until the 2003 budget. Unfortunately, since then, for whatever reason — I suspect it is the Department of Finance — the political will has not been there, the programme set out has not been fulfilled and the resources have become much more difficult to find. The political will needs to be found.

The major blockage here comes not particularly from within Fianna Fáil or the Progressive Democrats, but from within the Department of Finance. In a sense, I do not blame it because that is what the Department of Finance does. It does not like to make what it sees as open-ended commitments. It does not like saying that it does not know how much a particular programme will cost but that it will fund it as a matter of entitlement into the future, and will do everything possible to ensure it does not have to do so. It is very much a matter for the Minister for Finance and the various Ministers concerned with this issue to push their case at Cabinet and get a political decision which will oblige the Department of Finance to do something which is counter-instinctive and which it does not like doing, namely, making a commitment into the future to fund the needs which are undoubtedly there.

I wish to comment on some aspects of the Bill. It is important that if we set out obligations which are to be imposed on service providers, they are realistic. It is also important that they are, in some way, imminent. We should not, as the Government did when it published the last Bill, say to Iarnród Éireann that it has 12 or 15 years to make railway stations accessible to people with disabilities. That is not acceptable. We need to give hope to people with disabilities and to say to them that, within a realistic period, whether it be three, four or five years, they will be able to gain access to all public transport. There are many ways of slaying a cat and one way for Government to accede to what people are looking for would be to set targets so far down the road that they are out of sight. That, too, is unacceptable.

I refer to community employment schemes and work. It is generally agreed that approximately 70% of people with disabilities are unemployed or underemployed. There are some people who do not want to work and who are not able to do so irrespective of circumstances. However, there are many people with disabilities who are capable of and want to work, in many cases part-time. In that context, the various employment schemes run by FÁS, under the aegis of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, come into play. In the general cutbacks that have taken place within those schemes, the needs of people with disabilities have been largely ignored.

It is essential we acknowledge these schemes are important in two ways. Many organisations, including that with which Senator Kett is involved, depend largely on community employment schemes in that people with disabilities depend on others working within the schemes to provide facilities and care for them. In addition, people with disabilities use, and are on, those schemes. It is important we focus on that when dealing with community employment schemes. I know the policy of Government is to mainstream the provision of care and of those facilities but that is not without its difficulties. From representations we have received, we are all conscious of difficulties experienced by organisations.

Our purpose in putting down this motion is simple. It is a wake-up call to Government and is a way of articulating and giving a voice to the increasing frustration of the advocacy groups which went along with the consultation process in a spirit of good faith but which are feeling increasingly disappointed and frustrated that it has not produced the results which we all hoped for and anticipated.

Amendment put.