An equal status Bill would be a much better means of enforcing the rights of people with disabilities than the Government legislation to establish a national disability authority, according to the Labour Party.
Ms Jan O'Sullivan, the party's spokeswoman on Equality and Law Reform, said she was disappointed that they were still waiting for an equal status Bill and the implementation of the Employment Equality Act.
She believed the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities envisaged a much stronger Bill which would have "teeth which would ensure that the rights of people could be vindicated through use of this legislation."
Ms Mary Wallace, the Minister of State for Justice with responsibility for disability, who introduced the Bill in the Dail, stressed the concept of "mainstreaming", which would integrate services for the disabled with those available for the population generally.
Ms Wallace added, however, that this policy change would not "supplant positive initiatives for people with disabilities but will complement and run in parallel with the targeted services."
Ms Frances Fitzgerald (FG, Dublin South-East) said the Minister for Public Enterprise and Dublin Bus had plans to increase the number of wheelchair-accessible buses, "but not for some time. The order for 150 new non-wheelchair accessible buses was to answer the need for an expanded bus fleet. That the buses are not accessible to wheelchair users was seen as almost incidental."