Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

While this Bill has been subject to much discussion as it passed through the Dáil, time remains for the Seanad to bring it to the proper standard. Senator Kett was self-congratulatory regarding the Government's achievement in bringing forward this legislation. However, as the Government has said, much more needs to be done.

In two years, this Government will have been in power for a decade. The two parties involved will have had ten years to get this legislation right. Substantial consultation has taken place and work has been done by interested parties on this matter. This is the second attempt to introduce a Bill dealing with this issue. A good monument to this Government will not be constructed if this process is completed without key aspects being addressed. While any action is welcome, insufficient progress has been made in the context of ten years of Government and the best economic circumstances this country has experienced. The past decade presented opportunities to build on experience and rectify past mistakes.

The Minister of State is correct in saying that some issues have been addressed over the course of consultations with the DLCG on this Bill and during its passage through the Dáil. Credit for this is due to the involvement of disability action groups. I will restate the five outstanding key areas which remain unaddressed. The Minister of State touches on these areas but does not clarify them in a similar manner to the various groups involved. These key areas have been raised by groups involved with the DLCG and those not involved with it.

The first area involves a clear and unequivocal right to an assessment of needs which is not resource dependent. The Minister of State said that assessment processes will ultimately be resource dependent. His answer is not good enough and reveals a fundamental problem in the Bill. We cannot claim that equality in any other sense, such as between men and women, should be resource dependent. Matters of equality and fundamental rights cannot be addressed in this manner. It implies that a sector of society is segregated and would be the first to fall if money is not available. That is not appropriate in the context of fundamental rights. The premise of this legislation should be that people with disabilities have the same human rights as everybody else. To make the rights of one category of people resource dependent in contrast to the rest of society is to discriminate against that category. The legislation before us is based on a discriminatory perspective. Money which is being wasted in other areas could contribute to the provision of the funds necessary to avoid resource dependency.

Groups have noted that the services identified in the assessment of an individual must be provided within a reasonable and agreed timeframe. The Minister of State's response to this, which referred to the obligation on the HSE to collect aggregate data, is not good enough. People need to know that their needs will be assessed within a certain timeframe. If this is not provided for, they will never be sure of receiving the required services.

The progressive realisation of services has been discussed. Anyone should be able to expect that his or her needs will be addressed over an assessable period of time. I ask the Minister of State to re-examine the issue of timeframes. It is reasonable to ask that people are given timeframes. It should be expected that, if assessments of needs and services are to be provided, they should be carried out over a certain period. Otherwise, people see no light at the end of the tunnel because they are not assured that their needs will be met.

The Minister of State mentioned that the Taoiseach responded to the DLCG's five areas by setting out Government policy on each but he refers to only four of these areas. The third area, namely, that the Bill must provide for clear protection of disability-specific resources, has been identified in the Dáil. I ask the Minister of State to re-examine this issue because funding for this Bill should be ring-fenced. As this has been done for other legislation, why can it not be done in this instance? We need to be sure progress will be made every year in terms of the promises contained in this legislation and the realisation of people's rights.

The disability groups demand that the provisions on sectoral plans take account of the wider needs of people with disabilities. Each Department with relevant services must provide a sectoral plan. I do not understand why a mere six Departments have been identified by the Government. The issues addressed by the Disability Bill apply to all Departments. The approach should not be cross-departmental as set out in the Minister's speech, but should take in all Departments. I ask the Minister of State to reconsider the provisions and implement the key recommendations of the disability groups.

The fifth requirement identified by the group, including those involved in the DLCG, was for the Bill to provide for a clear statutory duty on all Departments and public bodies to include people with disabilities in their plans and services with appropriate monitoring and accountability. The Minister of State has not referred to such measures although he has mentioned important provisions such as the creation of significant requirements for public bodies in the areas of access to buildings, services, information and delivery on provisions. While these measures represent progress, it is not the significant progress the Minister of State claimed. They are superficial provisions whereas much more fundamental measures are required. For example, the requirement for local authorities to ensure the buildings for which they provide planning permission are accessible should be enforced. People should know such matters will be followed up in a way which does not happen currently. Enforcement will not take place under the provisions the Government is delivering in the Bill.

Services are fundamental to a framework of the type the Minister of State seems to have in mind. The rights movement in the disability sector wants legislation and the approach to disability to originate from a completely different perspective than it has until now. We must start with the assumption that people with disabilities have the same rights as everybody else and are entitled to the vindication of those rights. As one may see a cup which is half full as half empty, the completely opposite view must be taken in our approach to disability. To provide people with disability with the same human rights is not to create an additional entitlement for them. Legislation should enforce those rights and ensure they are vindicated.

The rights-based approach is not about new rights, it is about fundamental rights which already exist. It involves the same arguments one would put forward to secure equal rights for men and women or people of different races or ages. People with disabilities should have the same rights as everybody else.