Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome the opportunity to at last deal with this Bill, for which we have waited a long time. While I recognise that some improvements have been made in the Dáil for which I thank the Minister of State, the Bill still falls short of what the majority if not all of the disability groups have called for. This is the basis from which I must start.

I attended nearly all of the meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights when the various disability groups attended to give their presentations and views on the Bill. One after another they expressed their dissatisfaction with it. While I accept some small improvements have been made, one must note, as the Minister of State mentioned, some of those groups have withdrawn from the DLCG. I wish to read a statement made by NAMHI as follows:

Two leading national representative organisations of people with disabilities have withdrawn their co-operation with government on the Disability Bill 2004. We have no choice but to pursue the fight for a Bill which respects the rights of people with disabilities, as promised in the programme for government, independently of the Disability Legislation Consultation Group (DLCG). The Forum for People With Disabilities, the National Parents and Siblings Alliance and the National Association for People with an Intellectual Disability (NAMHI) have ended co-operation with the Bill.

Those groups, for which I have great respect, did not do so lightly. We must recognise that groups representing many people are still very dissatisfied with the Bill. These groups are dissatisfied as they are fighting for people who have been marginalised for years by many Governments. I do not place all the blame on this Government. However, Fianna Fáil has been in Government for many more years than any other party and I must lay more blame with it for not having provided us with stronger legislation.

The Bill as presented is flawed. It is very complex and complicated without joined-up thinking. Too many Departments and Ministers are involved, which makes for bad legislation. It is convoluted and poorly written, not from a legislative but a plain English viewpoint. It should contain English that the ordinary person on the street can understand.

The Bill is definitely resource-driven while those affected by its provisions start from a very low base. In seeking rights and services for able-bodied people, we start from a position of being able to access buildings, perhaps being able to read and write and being independent. In this debate we are discussing people who are not at that stage. Our obligation is to ensure that they are brought up to be on a level playing field in so far as they are capable of doing so.

I will refer to some of my concerns, which I will address on Committee Stage. I am looking forward to a good debate at that stage and I hope the Minister of State will be in a position to adopt some of the amendments I will table. Many of these issues have been thrashed out in the Dáil and I am hoping that with further time for reflection we will be able to gain some success here.

The definition of the term "disability" is restrictive relative to that used in the Equal Status Act and the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act. It excludes people with episodic needs and those who require early intervention measures, resulting in more people being excluded than included. This should be inclusive legislation. It must not set out legislation that from the outset will exclude certain people. I suggest that the right to an assessment is open to interpretation. The Bill states that assessment must be carried out as if there were no resource constraints. However, the assessment process is itself resource-constrained, and meeting any need for services arising from the assessment depends on the availability of resources. Assessment officers are appointed by the Health Service Executive, which, as we know, cannot go over budget and must take account of available resources. Therefore, once again, when we hit bad times, the marginalised will be those hit. That is not acceptable. When everyone else has been looked after, those with disabilities may or may not get something left over.

One question that comes to mind when discussing the assessments is whether the Minister has worked out how many assessment officers will be needed. Will their number also be constrained by resources? Do we have the necessary trained assessment officers in the country? How long will it take to put them in place? Those are important questions to which I would like some answers.

The Minister mentioned the appeals officers being independent. How can they be so if they are governed by or answerable to the Minister for Health and Children? They are employed by the Health Service Executive and are not independent. They should be under the auspices of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to be totally independent. They cannot be employed by the Health Service Executive and report to it.