The Government's new Disability Bill will provide for the establishment of an independent appeals system instead of legally enforceable rights to services for people with disabilities.
The move is an attempt to forge a compromise between lobby groups for the disabled and the Government after the original Disability Bill was withdrawn following a storm of protest.
While the legislation, which also includes an automatic right to an independent needs assessment for disabled people, represents a move forwards, it remains to be seen whether disability groups will accept the proposals.
Government officials are drafting two pieces of legislation, the Education for Persons with Disability Bill and a new Disability Bill, which will be published later this year and link into these independent structures.
The independent needs assessment will include a panel of therapists unconnected with service providers which would set out the services required for the individual, according to a senior Government source.
Regional health authorities will be obliged to provide these services. However, this will be diluted by a carefully-worded qualification which will stress the need to fund the area while limiting this obligation to the availability of resources. If a disabled person or their advocate is not satisfied with the services on offer, they may go to an independent appeals system, to be established on a statutory footing, which will decide whether health authorities are carrying out their duties.
The authority which this body would have in forcing health authorities to provide services is still being debated among Government departments.
Any mention of access to the courts if health authorities fail to provide these services, which disability groups argued was being blocked off in the withdrawn Disability Bill, will be avoided in the new legislation.
Disability groups say it is vital that people with disabilities and their families have access to independent judicial mechanisms to vindicate their rights because of the past failures of health and education authorities.
The legislation, if approved by Cabinet, will focus attention of a major shortages in the number of qualified therapists in the country needed to provide services to the thousands of people with disabilities.
The legislation follows considerable debate in Government and Cabinet over the implications of providing rights to services. Mr Willie O'Dea, Minister of State at the Department of Justice with special responsibility for disability issues, is among those who have taken a key role in drafting the legislation.
