A sense of entitlement. That's the key difference between people with disabilities in the United States and in Ireland. On a recent business trip to the States, I noticed it again and again: the speaker at a conference arriving in a wheelchair and progressing from her car to the podium without any of the preliminary consultations you see in this country, to check if the doors were wide enough, if there was a ramp, if someone would lower the microphone. Instead, the speaker simply assumed all of those would be in place - and they were.
But this sense of entitlement relates to much more than facilities. There is, for example, the lively debate about whether technology which promises to give some hearing to those without it is a benefit or a liability.
The community of the hearing-impaired believe it endangers the distinctive and valuable culture among those who sign rather than speak.
All things non-disabled are not necessarily best, say Americans with disabilities. We are different, not lesser, beings. We are contributors to society, not dependants.
In Ireland, on the other hand, disability has traditionally evoked sympathy and pity. It has generated marvellous volunteer effort and, in the process, created some charities which, until recently, tended almost to own and speak for those for whom they cared.
Times change, and attitudes in Ireland are changing with them. But why have times apparently changed so much faster and more comprehensively in the United States?
The short answer would seem to be that the sense of entitlement so palpable in American people with disabilities is one of the few positive products of involvement in major wars.
The theory is that if you're born with a disability your self-esteem, sense of entitlement and capacity to demand your civil rights are all likely to be impaired from the beginning.
On the other hand, if you're born without a disability and then, as an adult, go off to war and are permanently disabled as a result, you may come home without sight, hearing or the capacity to walk, but your sense of entitlement as an equal citizen is unimpaired. So you are more likely to be vocal and self-confident.
Of course, the attitude of people with disabilities is only one half of the equation. The other half is the attitude of the rest of us, as shown in our one-to-one responses to people with disabilities, in our reaction to fund-raising appeals, but perhaps most of all in our legislation and regulations.
Bluntly, Ireland's attitude to disability, measured on any of these scales, is awful. Improving, but awful.
Even the most cursory reading of the testimony of people with disabilities given to the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities shows Ireland as the antithesis of inclusiveness.
They - and their carers - talk of suffering frank prejudice, of patronising pity, of stereotyping. Given that many of us will inevitably become disabled as we move through life, the commission documentation should make us scared: we can see the future, and it does not work.
But what about today's people with disabilities? A 13-year-old, who with her family may have gone to one of the "listening" sessions in the early days of the commission, is now 17, on the verge of adulthood.
Her chances of a fulfilled independent life don't look to be improved at all by the intervening four years.
If nothing has changed, then things have regressed, because everyone else has moved on. There is an opportunity here to be grasped.
Mary Wallace, as FF spokesperson on disability, published a document on disability which was very well received. It proposed a Minister of State to chair an interdepartmental committee and be accountable to the Dail on all disability issues.
She is now that person, and must urgently demonstrate her determination to be its champion, to grab hold of it and "go boldly where no one has gone before" on this issue. It's not one where impassioned opposition can be expected, since the Rainbow Government approved the direction taken by the commission.
There will be no disagreements at Cabinet either, because the PDs in their election manifesto supported the implementation of the commission's report.
The single most important thing to be done is on the information front. Nobody ever has the right information in the right form.
A disability support service must be set up immediately - a national network of services giving support, advocacy and guidance. This could be done before Christmas with very little cost.
The NRB has about 18 centres around the country already, and there are also the Citizens Advice Bureaus and the NSSB. They could all be pulled together and co-ordinated.
A National Disability Authority has to develop policy, to monitor and to police. This should be a small, tight organisation set up on a statutory basis.
Legislation is needed and we all know this takes time. However, there is nothing to stop the Government setting the authority up in advance. That has been done with other agencies in the past.
It would be a very clear statement of intent rather than waiting for legislation.
There is a very large "disability" constituency out there. The ESRI found that close to 10 per cent of the population have a disability - some organisations working in the field feel the figure is closer to 20 per cent.
Even taking the conservative figure of 10 per cent, if you add in the families, the carers and others, a large section of the community is affected.
It's not often a new Government is handed an achievable moral imperative on a plate. The Government should get moving on this one without any further delay.