A new Disabilities Bill is being drafted which will extend the rights of people with disabilities to seek legal redress when they encounter discrimination, the Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ms Mary Wallace, told a SIPTU conference on disability. She said that meanwhile the revised Employment Equality Bill, which will outlaw job discrimination against people with disabilities, would become law shortly, and the Equal Status Bill would be brought before the Oireachtas later this year.
She is also planning to extend the 3 per cent Civil Service employment quota for people with disabilities to the wider public service, including commercial and non-commercial semi-State companies. Ms Wallace praised SIPTU for hosting yesterday's conference and for other initiatives, such as its recent pilot project to educate trade union activists on disability.
The union is now putting in place structures to ensure that its officials and shop stewards can represent adequately those with disabilities in the workplace. The EU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Mr Padraig Flynn, told the conference that the needs of people with disabilities had to be built into the new employment strategies adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The treaty created new opportunities to tackle unemployment at EU and member-state level. This new strategy would be preventive and would aim at early intervention to ensure people most at risk of long-term unemployment, like those with disabilities, were helped more effectively.
SIPTU's disability policy adviser, Mr Michael Gogarty, said that disability "is a word that is negative, just like discomfort or disloyal. It is used to tell 10 per cent of people to stay quiet and give the other 90 per cent an excuse to justify discrimination". The majority of people with disabilities were still being segregated from the community at an early age, and this was erecting barriers in terms of education and future opportunities.
The union president, Mr Jimmy Somers, said that at a time when the national rate of unemployment was down to 9 per cent, it was unacceptable that people with disabilities should face unemployment rates of up to 80 per cent.
Disability could affect people at any time and vulnerability increased with age. During 1997, of 4,000 people who registered with the National Rehabilitation Board for the first time, 1,600 were aged 40 or over. "Partnership 2000 contains a number of serious commitments to people with disabilities", Mr Somers said. "As general president of SIPTU I am proud that we played our part in putting these and other issues on the negotiating agenda."