The Republic and the rest of the EU lag far behind the United States in terms of access for people with disabilities to education, transport and information technology, a summer school on disability discrimination law heard yesterday.
The second Annual Summer School on Disability Discrimination Law, which opened yesterday at NUI Galway and runs until June 16th, is the only event of its kind in the world.
Director of the summer school, Prof Gerard Quinn of NUI Galway, pointed out that deficiencies in discrimination law at EU level were reflected in Irish law and policies.
The focus of this year's school is the EU framework directive on employment, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities (among others) in the employment sphere.
Prof Quinn said: "In relation to access to education, the EU has not yet adopted any legislation, compared with the US where they have the Individuals with Disability Education Act. We will be discussing the need for such legislation at a European level during the summer school."
While much has been done in terms of increasing access to information technology, more legal regulations were required, Prof Quinn said.
He said no deadline had been set for the EU buses and coaches directive, under which every bus must be made accessible, while in the US all private and public transport was disability accessible.
"Ireland has come on considerably, but if you are a disabled person in New York or Boston, you can get anywhere and everywhere on public transport. For the majority of European cities, this is not the case, including Brussels where we lived for a while with our disabled child," Prof Quinn told The Irish Times.
The need for legal protection against genetic discrimination - the next major issue in disability discrimination law - will be a topic of much discussion at the event.
Prof Quinn said many companies could provide genetic tests that predict with a high degree of accuracy whether a person is going to get cancer in the future, for instance. He said that if this information was available to employers and others, it could be used to discriminate against people.
Prof Peter Blanck of Syracuse University, who has argued many major disability cases before the US supreme court, said that although the EU had made important strides in many areas, it was still behind the US in terms of accessible education, transport and information technology.
