Access To Services For People With Disabilities

• Author: Eilionóir Flynn
• Pages: 14-23

Cork Online Law R eview 2007 2

Flynn, Access to S ervices for People with

Disabilities

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ACCESS TO SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The Potential for Improved Enforcement of Legal Rights through a Personal

Advocacy Service

Eilionóir Flynn

A INTRODUCTION

According to the 2002 census, there are 323,707 people with

intellectual or physical disabilities in Ireland, a significant proportion of

whom are resident in institutions. Many of these people have no information

about their legal rights, are denied access to essential services and on a more

pragmatic level, have no control over the minor details in their lives which

most people take for granted, such as what to eat or wear or who will help

them when they need assistance. Until now, the law which attempted to

protect these marginalized groups was based on traditional notions of welfare

and charity, or formal protection from discrimination.

However, as Banks states, the time has now come to enact more

interventionist resource-based measures, “to break down the barriers which

make the law inaccessible for people with disabilities.”1 A step forward in this

direction has been the Government’s Disability Strategy, which includes the

Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, the

Disability Act 2005, and the Citizens Information Act 2007. These legislative

instruments contain provisions to ensure that people with disabilities can

have their needs assessed and associated services provided, thus enabling

them to participate more fully in our society.

B WHAT IS ADVOCACY ?

This is where the relatively new concept of “advocacy” for people for

disabilities becomes important. Due to the nature of disability, it is difficult

for many people to negotiate the formal legal process required to obtain these

rights. At a very basic level, advocacy has been described in the Goodbody

report2 as “a means of supporting or speaking up for someone, their needs and

rights”. This is echoed in the definition of the functions of a personal advocate

in the Citizens Information Act 2007, in which advocates should aim to ‘assist,

support and represent the person [and] promote the best interest of his or her

health, welfare and well being.’3

At present, advocacy for people with disabilities in Ireland is provided

solely by community and voluntary organisations. In the past, this advocacy

tended to be informal, but with the establishment of the Citizens Information

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1 Banks, R. “More t han Law – Advocacy for Dis ability Rights” in Jones, M. & Ba sser

Marks, L.A., Disab ility, Diversability and Legal Chan ge (The Hague; Boston: M. Nijho ff

Publishers, 1999) at p. 343.

2 Goodbody Econo mic Consultants Developing an Ad vocacy Service for People with

Disabilities (Comm issioned by Comhairle: Dublin, 2 004).

3 Section 7D, Citize ns Information Bill 2006.