The Disability Bill could create a significant level of bureaucracy, the Dáil was warned.
Fine Gael spokesman David Stanton said there was a fear that a disproportionate amount of resources would be devoted to administration.
"An example of this is the provision for the appointment of assessment officers and liaison officers."
He suggested that one person should perform both roles "rather than passing files back and forth between different people and so on".
Labour spokeswoman Kathleen Lynch said it was incredible that under the Bill the officer who performed an assessment would take no account of the availability of resources. "The assessment is then passed to another officer, who must take this availability into account."
Minister of State for Justice Frank Fahey said while he had certain sympathy with the thrust of the arguments put forward, the House would be aware that an assessment officer had statutory independence to identify the individual needs arising from an assessment without regard to resources.
He said it had been argued that the person who carried out the assessment should be independent of the person who provided the service.
"If the same persons did the two jobs there would be an inevitable tendency to match assessments to available resources."
Finian McGrath (Ind, Dublin North Central) said people on the front line, particularly families of people with disabilities, had concerns about the value for money and the efficiency of services.
"The Taoiseach recently announced the spending of €3.7 million on the development of a swimming pool at St Michael's House, and I wish him well on that, but 548 people remain on waiting lists for the services of that centre. Of these, 263 are categorised as priorities, which means they are urgently awaiting a place."
