CHANGES in the Constitution are expected to be recommended by the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities when it publishes its final report today.
The changes would prohibit discrimination and guarantee all citizens a right to an education, it is understood. They would be followed by a Disabilities Act to translate such rights into law.
The Commission was set up by the Government three years ago under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Feargus Flood of the High Court. It will be succeeded in January by a permanent council, which can be expected to push for the implementation of the commission's report.
The report is believed to assert that people with disabilities are more disadvantaged by the attitudes of society than they are by their medical or psychological disabilities.
The many submissions received from people with disabilities are said to contain little or nothing about pain and suffering from great frustration at the barriers placed in their way when they try to play a full part in society.
The report is expected, among other things, to call for the establishment of a National Disability Authority to ensure that appeals and grievance systems are in place to give people with disabilities redress against decisions that affect them badly.
The report is also understood to envisage that independent advocates should be available for people with disabilities, especially in residential services. It also wants local centres set up to provide such people with all the information they need about services.
Specific recommendations are believed to include:
. A legal right to an income for people with disabilities. This should include a payment to compensate people for the extra cost of disability, whether they are in employment or not.
. A ban on refusing to employ or train people solely because they have disabilities.
. A large increase in sheltered workshop places for those who cannot work in the open market.
. A universal right of access to all new buildings, with all existing publicly owned buildings to be made accessible in a short time. District Courts will be obliged to take accessibility for people with disabilities into account in considering applications to renew licences for pubs, concert venues and other private facilities.
. People with disabilities should be given a say in how the money to be spent on providing services for them should be used.
. CIE, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus should be obliged to provide accessible buses at all depots by next summer.
. Churches should consult people with disabilities on how to remove barriers to enabling them to play a full part in church activities.
While preparing its report, the commission held meetings around the State at which people with disabilities were invited to make submissions.
Three main complaints emerged. The first was the experience among people with disabilities of becoming prisoners in their own homes because of the inaccessibility of the public transport system.
The second was they are not told of the services they are entitled to, and that they are sent from pillar to post when they try to get such information. The third was that they are denied a comprehensive education, with the result that they are disadvantaged when it comes to training and jobs.
The report will be introduced in Cork today by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor.