An important event in the history of the disability movement took place in a Dublin hotel this week. Five hundred people with disabilities gathered to launch a national representative council which will work to promote the interests of people with disabilities in training or in sheltered work. It was significant for a number of reasons.
First, it was dominated by people with disabilities. This has not always been the case in the past when their interests were discussed, sometimes without a disabled person in attendance. Second, it was an enormous achievement to get 500 people from all corners of the country to come to the launch. It was a tangible sign that the disability movement has developed the energy and commitment it needs in order to make significant progress. And finally, it is time that disabled people in sheltered workshops and training facilities had a real input. For too long the best jobs in these organisations have gone to able-bodied people. It is still the case that most organisations for people with disabilities are dominated by the able-bodied.
As an important start, representatives of the new council are to have seats on all boards in the Rehab Group. The Rehab Group has facilitated the development of the council. The council's 1,000 initial members are based in facilities attached to Rehab's National Training and Development Institute. It is greatly to the credit of Rehab that it saw this council as a positive development. It is to be hoped that other disability organisations take the same attitude.
In the words of its co-ordinator, Mr Paddy Doyle, a priority of the council will be to press for "a decent wage for a hard day's work." Current training allowances are as low as £10 per week and rarely higher than £20 a week. Such rates can hardly be defended as we pay lip service to the concept of the integration of people with disabilities into the day-to-day activities of the wider society. Also impossible to defend, is the inaccessibility of public transport and of so many buildings to disabled people.
Many of the 500 people who gathered at the launch of the council have no access to hotels, bars, restaurants, cinemas and other public buildings in this country. Many workplaces are also inaccessible, especially to those who use wheelchairs. Alongside physical inaccessibility, there are the barriers put up by closed minds: turning up for an interview in a wheelchair can influence an applicant's prospects of success. These are among the realities faced by the people who elected the national representative council.
Among the moves which could help to change this, are the enactment of legislation banning discrimination against people with disabilities. An attempt by the last Government to introduce such legislation failed on constitutional grounds. Ms Mary Wallace, Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform - who addressed this week's gathering - has promised amended legislation. Ms Wallace has less power than her predecessor, Mr Mervyn Taylor, who had a seat at Cabinet in the last Government. Yet she has struck observers as a determined Minister capable of getting things done.
Now that people with disabilities are organising effectively, the chances of getting legal changes to back up their campaigning efforts must be good.