People with Disabilities in Ireland
4th Floor Jervis House
Jervis Street
Dublin 1
Telephone: 01 87 21 74 4
Fax: 01 87 21 77 1
Email: info@pwdi.ie
In Spring of this year, PwDI was asked by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to respond to the Global Survey on the UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for People with Disabilities.
Accordingly, a Seminar was organised in Dublin, on Tuesday, March 22nd to which organisations representing disability were invited. The Seminar divided into a number of Workshops which considered the Standard Rules in some detail. We have recently published a report on its findings.
PwDI has long called on the Government to ensure that the current draft NSDS (National Standards for Disability Services) are placed in the public domain without delay. A great deal of very professional and high level work, under the Chairmanship of Professor Vincent Dodd, went into the preparation of these draft standards. They should now see the light of day and be openly debated. The standards are intended to ensure that services are provided to an agreed level of quality and that the quality is consistent throughout the country.
It is disappointing that a Minister of State recently indicated that the implementation of standards would take a considerable period of time as they have been forwarded to the interim HIQA (Health Information and Quality Authority) for consideration. It is deeply frustrating to see them hived off to an interim body. We are now calling on the Government to rethink its position on these standards. We need publication and public discussion and then we need implementation. Standards would be an essential step in ensuring that the end-user has some guarantee of the quality of service to expect.
The clear message emanating from all non-Governmental organisations representing people with disabilities meeting in Dublin on March 22nd was that while the rules remain largely unimplemented, there is a critical need for the introduction of binding standards in service delivery. The consensus was that there is a huge regional variation on provision of health services. This creates a lottery based on one’s address instead of one’s needs. People in rural areas face particular difficulties in accessing services.
At the meeting a number of other key issues emerged:
* A lack of long-term planning for health services for people with disabilities
* The importance of disability awareness training and the need for such training to be carried out by suitably qualified people The Government now needs to apply the extra €420m allocated to disability this year - and the additional €900m promised over the next three years - to address these issues in a meaningful and tangible way.
Copies of the PwDI Report on the UN Rules are available free of charge by contacting National Office at 01 – 8721744
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