A call for a civil rights government department to promote equality and reforms including those for the disabled was made yesterday in Dublin.
Prof Gerard Quinn, of NUI Galway and a member of the Human Rights Commission, was speaking at a conference to discuss proposals for inclusion in the Disabilities Bill due to be published before Christmas.
Under the title Get Your Act Together, the conference was organised by four groups dealing with disability - People with Disabilities Ireland, the National Association of Mental Handicap in Ireland, the Disability Federation of Ireland and the Forum of People with Disabilities. There are an estimated 350,000 people with some form of disability in the State. Prof Quinn said there were different groups of people and many shared the experience of neglect, hardship and discrimination. They were all at the conference because of their collective passion for justice which was possible and a moral imperative.
Prof Quinn said that while the Attorney General's office was involved in protecting civil rights, it had no role in promoting rights or legislation.
"The time has come for a separate civil rights department with a mandate to promote civil rights and which could and would step on the toes of other departments," he said.
Civil rights was a difficult matter and affected all areas.
"Until this happens, there is a danger that reform for the disabled is likely to be piecemeal as there is no common thread," Prof Quinn said.
He called on people at the conference to agree that disability was a human rights issue. The Bill should be treated as an act of emancipation for people with disabilities, he said.
Dr Pauline Conroy, social researcher and guest lecturer at UCD, said the Bill had been prepared against the backdrop of intensive legal action on behalf of people with disabilities.
Disabilities issues were still privatised especially inside the family, she said.
"Disability policy must be public policy," Dr Conroy said.
There was a problem regarding who, how and where services were to be delivered. Public services had run out of staff. There were only 11 disability social workers in the State, Dr Conroy said.
Minister of State for Justice Ms Mary Wallace said the Government's commitment was to publish the Bill before Christmas. The Bill would seek to strike a fair but positive balance for all citizens which would remove barriers and maximise supports for people with disabilities, she said.
The Bill would also address a number of areas which impacted directly on the lives of people with disabilities and in which there was at present little legislative protection. "Such areas of interest in the context of the Bill would include that of genetic testing and the commercial uses to which information, obtained in this way from this new area of technology, may be put," she said.