Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

I join Senator John Paul Phelan in welcoming the Bill. I welcome the concept of making life easier for people with disabilities. The Bill is intended to provide an enhancement of life for people with disabilities. In considering where we are in providing services for people with disabilities, we should take a step back and consider some philosophical questions. I have the following problem with the Bill. Why do we need advocates to give people the rights to which they are entitled? What is wrong with the system that it requires the establishment of an independent advocate-type body with appeals mechanisms, directors, staff, a budget of €2 million, etc.? Should our efforts not be directed towards correcting the system rather than finding mechanisms to make it better for the people who need to use it?

The key question is what we need to do with the system. While in the short term it might be appropriate to introduce a mechanism of advocacy and assistance, our real goal should be to devise a system that is sustainable into the future. We must ensure that the people who have rights in any system, including the health system, services for those with disabilities and education, which are guaranteed by the Constitution, should not need special steps or measures to give them that to which they are entitled.

The Minister spoke about spending on services for those with disabilities. It must be recognised that we have come a long way in working with people with disabilities to look after them, educate them, and provide them with facilities and carers. When we ask people with disabilities and their service providers whether things are substantially better now than they were ten years ago we are told that while they are better, there is a long way to go. I will give an example of a service provider in Galway city. A training centre was established to help people with disability who have completed second level education and provide life skills, etc. Fifteen people travel from Portumna to Galway city, spending six hours a day on a bus to access training and development services. That does not make sense and it is not acceptable. Will an advocacy service improve that situation or do we need to improve the system for those people? There is a group of parents called Voices for Galway which provides additional speech therapy for children with Down's syndrome. We sang carols before Christmas to raise money and collected approximately €4,000. What of the €2 million being put into this advocacy service to help us win rights that we already have? Why are we fund-raising to provide basic human rights, in this case the right to be able to speak properly for people who have that ability but need assistance?

This is not a personal attack on the Minister because it is not his problem but it is time we took stock and asked what we are doing about disability. The Minister referred to mainstreaming. That is a joke. We are creating segregated groups of people within a mainstream environment. Anyone involved in education and training at any level would say this mainstreamed integration of people with disabilities is not happening. There are special teachers and assistants, and children who are made to feel different because they are in a classroom. That is not real mainstreaming. The general population does not accept what people with disabilities can give.

I attended a meeting recently to review someone who had entered a new service. This took place five months after the person joined the service. The incredible feature of that meeting was that throughout the meeting the service providers discussed what the person was able to achieve. It is to their credit that they did not talk about disability but ability. At the end of the meeting it was clear to all involved that while this 20 year old was able and achieving within the training setting provided, that did not extend to the wider setting of the community and the person could not go to the pubs or cinemas on Friday nights. The person did not have a social circle or the supports to live in our society.

I appeal to the Minister to create a review mechanism to see if we can eliminate the requirement for this advocacy service in five or ten years. The money provided to health services has increased significantly over the past ten years, yet despite that and the establishment of the Health Service Executive, the service is not as good as it used to be. People are waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency units and hospitals must close because of MRSA. Why are there so many problems in the health service. Where is all this money going? Why do we not get the type of improvements that we should get for the money spent on the service? Maybe this is because we have created levels of administration, advocacy, directors, appeals and people doing paper pushing jobs.