Some of the needs of people with disabilities are detailed in the NPSDD annual report, writes Sylvia Thompson
The need for personal assistants, peer support and technical aids is increasing as those with physical disabilities are encouraged to access health and education services and seek employment alongside everyone else.
Some of these needs are highlighted in the recently published annual report of the National Physical and Sensory Disabilities Database (NPSDD), published by the Health Research Board. And although it has been estimated that the database accounts for only about 65 per cent of this group of people with disabilities, it nonetheless points to astonishing gaps within the services.
For instance, according to the NPSDD, almost 30 per cent of people required assessment for personal assistance and support services. Home help, peer support and personal assistance were the services most required.
"The requirement for personal assistants is a bigger issue than the report suggests," says Joanne McCarthy from the Disability Federation of Ireland, which represents more than 100 national organisations of people with disabilities.
She suggests that as services for people with disabilities become mainstream, it will be crucial that supports to give this group of people access are put in place.
"In order for people to live independently, personal assistants have to be incorporated into the plans. For instance, there are people who have got secure, adequate accommodation but who can't live there full-time because they don't have full-time personal assistants."
Kathleen McLoughlin from the Irish Wheelchair Association says recruiting, training and providing personal assistants to people is the biggest part of the organisation's work.
"We have 600 people on our waiting list for personal assistants services," she says.
According to McLoughlin, people don't always understand the difference a personal assistant makes to the life of someone with physical and sensory disabilities.
"It can mean that they can continue to live at home rather than move into residential care. It can mean they can go to work or college," she says.
"Often personal assistants are equated with home help but really personal assistants are much more. They make sure someone can manage to live - get washed, get dressed and get out to work."
Tony Whelan is a teacher of computer software packages who can't work because he hasn't got a personal assistant. "Without a personal assistant, I can't get out of my house in the morning, use public transport and get into the workforce like everyone else."
In some ways, the figures in the NPSDD tell only part of the story, not least because they rely on voluntary information provided by the person with a disability. This sometimes means that people will consider only what they need now in relation to what's available rather than what might make their lives better in the long term.
"The database should flag a need and play a role in the development of services but we have to ask what its relationship will be to the newly introduced Independent Needs Assessment and to the mainstreaming approach within the National Disability Strategy," says McCarthy who is also a member of the NPSDD committee.
The National Disability Authority, a State agency which advises the Government on disability issues, says the NPSDD report "underlines the importance of a right to independent assessment of need and for this assessment process to underpin planning and delivery of services to people with disabilities".
The right to independent assessment of need for children under five became law on June 1st and will be extended to all age groups by 2011. Such assessments are expected to express the full needs of people with disabilities separate from what is currently available.
Earlier this month, President McAleese suggested that too many people with disabilities led lives that were only "half-lived" because of "lack of opportunities, lack of choice . . . too much lazy old thinking". She was addressing a conference in Dublin on independent living for people with disabilities.
The conference, which was hosted by the Centre for Independent Living, also heard calls from a number of international experts for direct payments to people with disabilities so that they could directly employ carers and assistants.
Speaking about how such schemes operated in Britain, Prof Colin Barnes, research director for the British Council of Disabled People, said: "The positive impact was not only for the disabled person who gained improved skills, quality of life and self-esteem but also for the family and the wider community."
Delivering the inaugural lecture in the Get Ahead lecture series on disabilities in UCD, President McAleese said the unemployment rates for people with a disability were still high and disabled people were being left "frustrated and dispirited" by the barriers they faced.
In its report on Disability and Work, the NDA outlined key actions required for a comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities. These include raising participation levels in education, increasing recruitment of people with disabilities in public and private sectors, tackling benefit traps and informing employers about grants and supports for workers with a disability.
Providing people with physical disabilities the assistance required to continue their education and training so that they can work remains crucial within such a package.
As President McAleese said, "there is a critical mass of ambitious children and young adults with disability forming and we have to ensure that the world is ready for them".