SWEEPING reforms to dismantle discrimination against the estimated 360,000 people with disabilities have been recommended by a Government appointed commission.
A permanent council will start work in January to press for the implementation of the reforms which include changes to the Constitution and to legislation.
The final report, A Strategy for Equality, was published yesterday by the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, appointed in 1993 and chaired by Mr Justice Feargus Flood of the High Court.
The commission has taken a radical, civil rights approach in its report, arguing that discrimination, whether deliberate or unthinking, is the greatest handicap for people with disabilities.
The problems encountered by people with disabilities did not centre, the commission says, on physical pain or discomfort. "On the contrary, the frustration revolved around people's sense that they were being put in a position of having to deal with a myriad of oppressive social barriers in addition to their disabling conditions."
The commission proposes a range of legislative and other changes to improve and promote the rights of people with disabilities.
Principal among these is an amendment to the Constitution "to guarantee the right of equality and prohibit discrimination".
A right to an appropriate education - seen as a key issue by many people with disabilities and parents - should also be written into the Constitution, it says.
These constitutional rights should be implemented through a Disabilities Act, a National Disability Authority should monitor disability policy and provide redress for people with grievances, and Disability Resource Centres should be established all over the State.
The way in which income support is provided for people with disabilities is strongly criticised by the commission. "There is a bewildering array of schemes, matched by an equally bewildering set of eligibility assessment procedures," it says.
In many cases there is no legal right to a payment. How much a person gets can depend on the part of the State he or she lives in because of an absence of national standards for some payments.
This confusion should be replaced by a legal right to income support and there should be two main payments. One would be a disability pension payable to people whose disability prevents them from working or from working to their full potential.
The second would be a "costs of disability" payment to meet the additional everyday costs associated with a disability and payable whether the person is in work or not.
The commission also seeks private and public sector job quotas for people with disabilities. The existing 3 per cent quota of public service jobs for people with disabilities should be reached within three years, it says.
At least 8 per cent of the employees of organisations funded to provide services to people with disabilities should be filled by such people within four years, it says.
It also calls for pressure on the private sector to employ more people with disabilities: "If fewer than 3 per cent of private sector jobs are held by people with disabilities within a three year period, a mandatory employment quota should be introduced," it says.
"Contractors applying for State business contracts should be encouraged to comply with the 3 per cent employment quota."
In his foreword to the report, Mr Justice Flood seeks immediate action on six issues:
. Replacing sub standard facilities for people with disabilities, especially those for people with mental handicaps in St Ita's Hospital, Portrane, Dublin.
. Providing adequate funding for the permanent Council for the Status of People with Disabilities, which goes into operation in January.
. Providing more sheltered workshop places for those who cannot work in the open market.
. Giving the Department of Equality and Law Reform the primary responsibility for disability issues.
. Obliging CIE and private transport operators to purchase only accessible rail carriages and buses from January 1st next.
. Obliging health boards to make at least 80 per cent of their transport facilities accessible to wheelchairs from January.
. Getting a non discrimination clause inserted into EU treaties.