Some people in sheltered workshops are taking home as little as £3 a week, the Forum of People with Disabilities Claimed yesterday.
The forum says it is angry that a commitment in Partnership 2000 to a code of practice for people in sheltered employment has not been met.
Ms Theresa McAteer, the forum's co-ordinator, said people in sheltered workshops are voiceless. They are unwilling to go to the media with their grievances for fear of incurring the disapproval of those who run the workshops.
People in sheltered workshops are providing goods and services at very low rates, she said. In some workshops, pay is so low that when workers have paid for the use of the canteen they have as little as £3 a week left.
The forum is particularly angry about the lack of action on a code of practice. It would take only a matter of days to produce a draft code, Ms McAteer said.
The forum has also complained at the delay in finalising the report of the inter-departmental task force, set up to work out how to implement the 1996 recommendations of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities.
And a commitment in Partnership 2000 to ensure that all new road and rail stock is accessible has been broken with Dublin Bus's purchase of 150 inaccessible buses.
The chairwoman of the forum, Ms Selina Bonnie, said: "We are tired of waiting for Government to deliver on commitments made three years ago. This Government continues to pay lip service to disabled people's basic needs. However when we look at their Partnership 2000 track record it is clearly evident that while they talk the talk they don't walk the walk."
While people in sheltered workshops are paid little for the work they do, unemployment remains rampant among disabled people, the forum says. "Almost four years after the production of the commission report, 80 per cent of disabled people are still unemployed," it complains.