Frustrated parents presented a Bill to the Dáil last week knowing it would fail. They didn’t get much publicity because abortion is the big issue. So despite the noise and cries of children with disabilities in the gallery, the Bill failed.

The parents and children were representing the National Parents and Siblings Alliance (NPSA), an umbrella group of 50 affiliated organisations for families and friends of people with intellectual disabilities. "We've been promised for years by successive governments they would produce a disability Bill and we are still waiting," says Karen Canning (39), secretary of the NPSA. She is also the mother of Kealan, a 12-year-old with intellectual disabilities so severe that he is in a wheelchair, is incontinent and has to be fed with a spoon.

The Disabilities Commissioner Bill was one of the first presented by a non-governmental group. It asks for two main things: independent assessment of needs for each individual with a mental and/or physical disability, and the resources to carry out the plan. The Bill, if enshrined in law, would guarantee that children with mental and physical disabilities would have all their needs met.

"The right to life doesn't end at birth," says Canning. "Our children have no rights. If I were faced with having another child like Kealan, I would have an abortion. I couldn't afford to have that baby. I have two other children and if I had another child with a disability, those children would lose their mother.

"If the Government is to convince people not to have abortions, and to continue to bring these little people into the world, they can't stop their responsibility at birth. Abortion is not black and white. Having a child like Kealan is doing a sentence for a crime you did not commit. The day Kealan was born was the end of my life, and my other kids' lives are ruined. The Holy Joes who oppose abortion in black and white terms don't know what they're talking about."