Madam, – I refer to the call in your Letters page (February 15th) for a new policy on the needs of people with disabilities. My Office for Disability Mental Health has already commenced the process of devising such a policy, which will focus on supporting those with disabilities to participate as fully as possible in the social and economic lives of their communities.
This work is part of the Value for Money and Policy Review on the Disability Services which I announced last September.
The review, under the independent chairmanship of Laurence Crowley, has adopted a two-pronged approach. 1. It is examining the efficiency and effectiveness of existing services and whether they are meeting the Government’s stated objective that people with a disability are enabled, as far as possible, to live full and independent lives. 2. An advisory group of policy experts, under the chairmanship of my office’s disability adviser, is putting together a new vision and policy framework for the disability services. A first draft was considered by the steering group on February 2nd. The key themes proposed will be explored with focus groups of service-users in a consultation process facilitated by the National Disability Authority. It is expected the policy framework will be completed by the summer, when it will be submitted to the steering group for consideration in the context of its overall report, due later this year.
Members of the public were invited to submit views on the disability services to the steering group in December and almost 200 responses were received.
While the closing date for this public consultation has passed, I would be happy to hear from any interested parties who did not get the opportunity to contribute on that occasion.
– Yours, etc,