Many large State-sponsored bodies and health boards have failed to act to implement the Government's target of people with disabilities making up 3 per cent of the public service workforce, according to Ms Mary Wallace. The Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform was speaking at a seminar in Dublin yesterday.
She pointed out that this target had been set in three successive partnership programmes, most recently the PPF. The target was not achieved during the lifetimes of the two previous programmes and progress was slow.
"At the end of 1995, only 1.5 per cent of public service employees had a disability. In 1997, it was 1.52 per cent. There was a marginal increase in 1998 to 1.72 per cent."
The target had to be met by 2002 if public service employers were to retain credibility with people with disabilities, Ms Wallace said. This would involve recruiting about 3,000 people with disabilities into the public service.
She said the statistics masked the good performance of some public service organisations, which had complied fully with the 3 per cent target or had exceeded it. But she was concerned about the number of organisations facing a "considerable challenge" in order to comply.
Mr Niall Crowley, CEO of the Equality Authority, said that disability was the most significant of the new grounds for discrimination in terms of queries to the authority and cases being developed. "The dominant issue is that of access to employment where direct discrimination and the failure to reasonably accommodate needs are at issue."