Disability services reform like something out of Dickens, says Senator

Independent Senator Tom Clonan has compared disability services in Ireland to something out of a Dickens novel, and said it reminded him of Conservative treatment of social services in the United Kingdom.

A motion was carried in the Seanád on Wednesday that would see progress on Ireland ratifying the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Clonan’s motion was carried by 23 to 11, and the ball has been set in motion for Government to ratify the United Nations request within the lifetime of the current coalition.

Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys launched a Green Paper for disability reform, which Clonan said was “the language of Charles Dickens.”

The document states that the programme of review will take five years to implement, and would require citizens to receive a medical assessment before they are deemed eligible to claim benefits.

“By that logic, it means that, given that there are 225,000 disabled citizens, 1,000 would have to be medically assessed every week, non-stop, for 52 weeks of the year for five years to achieve that. These are individuals like my son who cannot get medical appointments as we speak. My son cannot get speech therapy, yet the Government proposes to have him medically assessed to see if he is fit to work,” he remarked.

Clonan compared the measures to that of the governing Conservative Party in the UK.

“We need to know that no one will finish up worse off as a result of this. It happened in the UK and it led to people working in places they were not able for or were not suited to. The Irish version will have an appeals process – the Government is to be complimented on that – but how effective will it be? That is important.”

“We are not claiming the policy here will be identical to the one introduced in the UK by the Conservative Party. However, the same incentives for a similar disaster are there. This policy can only be successful if it determines that people are fit for work. If people do not comply with the Department, they could be struck off and lose their benefits. We need reassurances about that. Otherwise, there is no point in spending large sums of money on trying to assess people,” he said.

“I ask that the Minister not persist with this. I can tell her what its legacy will be. If she thinks a proposal to put tax on children’s shoes was politically unwise, I can tell her that the disabled persons organisations are incandescent about what is contained in this document. I know because I am in contact with them every day.”

Minister Humphreys said  “I am very mindful of our commitment in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to consult closely with and actively involve disabled people and their representative groups in changes to policies and services that will impact them.”

“I have already consulted and met with disabled persons’ organisations and other disability stakeholders at the launch of the Green Paper. We are organising other consultation events over the coming weeks in Dublin and around the country. We have already set two dates, 18 October and 9 November,” she said.