Whatever the criticisms which may be levelled at aspects of the Disability Bill, its publication yesterday is a milestone in Irish social history. The Bill aims to enshrine rights for which disability groups have been fighting since at least the 1970s. These include the right to have one's needs as a disabled person assessed. Needs assessments strengthen the hand of disabled persons and their families in pressing for services. They are to be introduced in January of 2003. The problem is that the legislation still has to pass through the Dβil and Seanad. Even if this happens without a hitch and before the General Election, will there be time to meet this deadline? Certainly, there will be time to meet some of the deadlines. Buses are to be accessible by 2010, with 60 per cent of them accessible by 2006. Taxis are also to be accessible by 2010 and trains by 2015. That's an awful long time to have to wait for a train and it's a long haul for the disability movement which will have to maintain pressure to ensure these deadlines are met.
Also some time away is the implementation of advocacy services for people with disabilities, many of whom are not in a position to argue a case for themselves. Here the deadline is 2006 which seems unnecessarily distant. Nevertheless the service will be particularly helpful for people in closed environments such as psychiatric hospitals.
For longer than most disabled people can remember there has been a target of filling three per cent of public service jobs with people who have disabilities. Needless to say, three per cent of public sector jobs are not filled by people with disabilities. This requirement is to be put on a statutory footing by January 2003. It is impossible to know whether this will have the faintest effect and whether the Minister of State, Ms Mary Wallace, will be proved correct in her curious statement of yesterday that "this initiative is subject to sunsetting on 31 December, 2009." This seems to be a way of saying that the quota will have been reached by the end of 2009.
The moratorium on genetic testing for commercial purposes until the end of 2009 is welcome. This issue needs a great deal of teasing out and the Bill, if passed, will buy us the time to do that. Despite the questions hanging over it the Bill is to the credit of Ms Wallace and a tribute to the tenacity of the disability organisations who fought for it.