COMMENTS from hundreds of submissions made to the Commission:
. "I travelled to my local FADS employment service for information on community employment schemes and when I arrived there I could not get in two steps at the main door. Have disabled people no right to public services? Are we not seen as the public?"
. "Having a mentally handicapped child is very time consuming so it is very frustrating when it takes 16 years to find out minute details about services."
. "There seems to be a large element of whim in the decision by the health board authorities to accept a claim for benefit. This causes great suffering and frustration to the claimant and relatives as well as to voluntary workers trying to alleviate the situation.
. "... if I accepted defeat in my efforts to have my daughter educated with her peers, she would follow so many other children from the West of Ireland to St Mary's School in the Orthopaedic Hospital in Baldoyle. There seems to be unlimited money to send my child - away from home but none to enable her to stay at home with her family and friends."
. "It appears to us that the parents of a disabled child face a lifetime of fighting each and every agency and department for their rights and that of their child.
. "Since 1983 I have been in communication with various governments to get the concessions afforded to disabled drivers but was told that the Act was not applicable for one hand drivers."
. "I became disabled at the age of 11 years due to a brain tumour. Since then I notice that nobody listens to me and if they do they pay no attention to what I say ... now as I am writing this ... I remember that nobody listens to me so I will stop writing."
. "It is society - not our disability - which puts obstacles in our way. It is society which denies us access. This is what we must change."