Fianna Fail's policy document on disability has been somewhat overshadowed by other events but it is a remarkable document for all that. Not only is it detailed and comprehensive, dealing with virtually every disability issue of recent years, but it goes further than many might have expected. In particular, it proposes legislation which would not simply outlaw discrimination against people with disabilities - such legislation is on the way from the Government anyhow - but which would positively promote the interests of disabled people. Employers, for instance, would be obliged to conform to reasonable standards for the accommodation of people with disabilities in the workplace.
This is the least detailed section of the document, but what is important is that the principle of the positive promotion of the interests of people with disabilities, through an Act of the Oireachtas, is now Fianna Fail policy. There is plenty of detail elsewhere in the document. It seeks the appointment of a minister for disability who would vet government proposals for their effect on people with disabilities. It seeks the provision of support to ordinary schools so that children with disabilities can be educated in them. The day on which their child must go to a special school is a sad one for many parents who know that the bus taking their child to the special school is also taking him or her away from the normal social life of children in the neighbourhood. Many such parents will applaud the Fianna Fail proposal.
It also seeks to oblige training agencies such as FAS to cater for people with disabilities and it seeks - new measures - such as the extension of the 3 per cent civil service employment quota to the rest of the public service - to encourage the employment of more people with disabilities. It seeks financial incentives to persuade private firms to employ people with disabilities. It might justifiably have gone on to seek measures to ensure that disability organisations themselves fill more of their managerial posts with people with disabilities a development which should surely be a primary aim of the disability movement.
Indeed, the Fianna Fail document could have been written by the disability movement, so in tune is it with what that movement wants and with the proposals which are likely to come out of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities. Of course, implementing such a set of policies in government is a very different matter from demanding them while in opposition. Few will be so naive as to believe that on its return to government, Fianna Fail will immediately set about implementing all the recommendations in this document. But the significance of the document is that Fianna Fail in government will not have to be convinced of what ought to be done, though it may well have to be convinced that it should actually do it.
In this regard, this policy document will be an invaluable weapon in the hands of the disability movement, a movement which continually grows in its ability to highlight its needs and to lobby for change. People with disabilities are not getting a fair deal. Too many employers allow the obvious disability of the applicant to blind them to his or her many abilities. Bureaucrats and the health services too often fail to hear what people with disabilities are saying to them. CIE takes money from the Government for free travel passes for people who cannot cope with its inaccessible transport or stations. The work to be done is quite daunting, but the adoption of this document by the biggest political party in the state is an important step along the way.