One of the largest physical disability associations has taken the first steps towards suing the State's health boards because of "grave and long-standing inequities" and huge variation in services between the regions.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Irish Wheelchair Association, which has over 13,000 members, voted overwhelmingly at the weekend to set up a fund to initiate litigation against various health boards in whose areas the association claims "discrimination against disabled persons is rampant".
The IWA has stated that it intends to seek assistance from the Equality Authority and the Ombudsman to halt discrimination against its members in the provision of services. It has called on the Department of Health to remove the inequities its members are said to be facing.
"Some health boards are giving huge amounts of money (in subvention) while others are giving tiny support, whereas they all have the same responsibilities and the same obligations", Mr Phelim O'Reilly, a long-serving member of the IWA, told the 250 delegates attending the association's conference in Tralee.
Mr O'Reilly told the conference that the lack of standardisation in services between health boards amounted to "naked discrimination against disabled persons in the least-favoured areas".
The Eastern Health Board contributed most to the IWA in subvention last year, far exceeding the other regions in the State, even allowing for population.The EHB paid out £2.75 million pounds to the IWA for services, including assisted living services. (This service is provided by F┴S in some of the other regions).
The lowest contribution last year was from the Mid-Western Health Board, which paid out £249,000, while the Southern Health Board had contributed only marginally more - £255,000.
While the figures had shown an improvement this year, in some cases substantially, the Southern Health Board and the other health boards still had a lot of catching up to do, according to Ms Anne Winslow.
"The real problem is the variation in services", she said. "Full-time personal assistants are only available in the Eastern Health Board area, for instance. Sometimes the best advice we can give people is to move, or they have to try to get by with a much-reduced service", Ms Winslow told the conference.
"Discrepancies exist in all areas of service provision by health boards for the physically-disabled", she said. "Day care services can vary enormously between regions, as can respite care. "Physiotherapy is often in short supply, because there are not enough therapists. But all the therapeutic services are under-supplied, depending on the health board."
Representatives of the association had been involved in a number of meetings with health boards, but very little progress had been made, the conference heard.
"As an association, we are no longer going to stand for this type of bureaucratic discrimination", Ms Molly Buckley, vice-chairperson of the IWA, told the conference.
Delegates were told that discrepancies also existed with local authority support for adapting housing to meet the needs of the disabled, with some local authorities being more supportive than others. The IWA called for the maximum grant level of £16,000 to be raised to £25,000.
Disabled people and their families had to wait for up to three years for payment of these grants. During this waiting period families were being forced to live in unacceptable conditions, in some cases with commodes located below stairs, requiring able-bodied family members to have to carry the disabled person up and down the stairs from a bedroom, the conference heard.
The conference voted to campaign for an increase in the minimum weekly payment to people with disabilities. The IWA wants the rate increased to £120 from the present weekly payment of £86.