Seanad Éireann must act to amend the Disability Bill to improve the way the public service deals with disabled people, writes John Dolan
The Disability Bill passed the report and final stages in Dáil Éireann on May 26th, after the Government guillotined the debate. The Bill was then sent to Seanad Éireann and is now entering the committee stage. The Seanad may propose amendments to the Bill, after which Dáil Éireann must then consider any such amendments.
Minister of State Frank Fahey has stated that he is open to further amendments as the Bill goes through the Seanad. This is a welcome and important commitment. Yet its possible value hangs greatly on the quality and appropriateness of the Seanad debate.
The Seanad needs to respond to a number of key areas.
Firstly, this is "whole of Government legislation" with nine departments currently involved. How will leadership and co-ordination be provided on an ongoing basis? While the Bill is sponsored by the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform, it proposes responsibilities across many departments. Yet it is Mr Fahey who has the difficult task of promoting the legislation from his position in one department (Justice).
Secondly, while the purpose of the legislation is to improve the situation of disabled people across a range of public service areas, the debate to date has not come to grips with the fact that our public services will have to consistently operate from the basis that disabled people are, equally, members of the public to be served.
A disabled person has no more or no less rights than any other person. To date the former has had limited scope within which to exercise those freedoms. Will this legislation explicitly place the onus on Government departments to develop policies and plan services on the basis that disabled people are members of the public? Will it set out robust monitoring and evaluation procedures to ensure that such planning takes place?
Thirdly, as this legislation brings disability on to the political centre stage it simultaneously, and inadvertently, becomes a flashpoint for the difficult debate on the nature, management and control of public service provision in Ireland.
Sustaining Progress, the social partnership agreement, has set out a range of issues to be considered in relation to public service delivery.
This document refers to the need for "whole of Government" approaches, public service modernisation and access to quality public services. Specifically in relation to the Disability Bill it states: "Implementing the proposed legislation will require an integrated and concerted cross-departmental approach and action" .
The NESC strategy report, An Investment in Quality: Services, Inclusion and Enterprise (March 2003), says it "sees the challenge of economic and social rights as involving the challenge of creating effective institutions and policies for social and economic services. This implies that we focus on the connection between rights and standards".
Furthermore, NESC emphasises the complex philosophical, political, legal and practical issues involved in the identification, creation, legislation and vindication of rights, especially social and economic rights.
When the Programme for Government stated: "We are committed to ensuring that disability is placed where it belongs, on the agenda of every Government department and public body" - we were, I hope, witnessing Government setting down a standard for the operation of the work of its departments in relation to the equal inclusion of members of the public with disabilities.
Sustaining Progress concludes its chapter, "Delivering a Fair and Inclusive Society", by stating that in the social partnership agreement, "particular emphasis is placed on ensuring that standards of public services are identified. It will also require a renewed focus on setting and achieving standards for the delivery of public services and monitoring progress."
Seanad Éireann, with its vocational representation which includes public administration and social services, now has an opportunity to fully address this piece of legislation, given the inter-connectedness of the vindication of economic and social rights and the provision of quality public services.
Such a debate can give the Minister and the Dáil the opportunity to further enhance this legislation and, simultaneously, advance within the Oireachtas the debate on our public services which has already started within the social partnership arena.