Eight disability and human rights groups are to join today to campaign to ensure that the forthcoming Disability Bill is rights-based.
Co-ordinator of the National Parents and Siblings Alliance (NPSA), Mr Séamus Greene, said yesterday there was "enormous concern" in the disability sector that the Bill, due to be published next month, would not be rights-based.
Mr Greene said the groups would today start a campaign that would include gathering 100,000 signatures in a nationwide petition to be taken up over November 7th, 8th and 9th.
Joining the NPSA today will be Amnesty International, the Centre for Independent Living, the Disability Legal Resource Project, Down Syndrome Ireland, the Forum for People with Disabilities and Irish Autism Alliance.
Mr Greene said the sector was almost certain that the Government did not intend producing anything like the kind of rights-based Bill it had been looking for.
Following a meeting with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in July, the Disability Legislation Consultation Group understood they had received a commitment to a rights-based Bill.
Since then, said Mr Greene, the Minister with responsibility for disabilities, Mr Willie O'Dea, had indicated that the legislation would guarantee only the right to an assessment of needs.
Asked what would happen if the Bill did not guarantee the right to services to the disabled, Mr Greene said: "I can only say the anger in the disability sector will be enormous."
Meanwhile, in its pre-Budget submission published yesterday, the Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) said the absence of a rights-based legislation was "causing basic needs to go unmet".
In particular, the DFI is demanding that "appropriate accommodation" be provided for all long-stay patients with disabilities. "People with mental illness continue to live in acute beds in mental hospitals for no reason other than the lack of suitable accommodation," according to the DFI.
