EU disability petition seeks million signatures

A European campaign to collect one million signatures from people seeking tougher disability legislation was launched in Dublin yesterday.

A total of 8,205 signatures are being sought in Ireland in the "1million4disability" campaign.

Kathy Sinnott MEP said the figure was set at one million because the European Commission was compelled to take action on an issue if it received that number of signatures from EU citizens supporting a campaign.

"My hope for the campaign is to get the European Commission to formulate a legally binding disability directive which specifically addresses the issues such as equality, opportunity, access, independent living, care, consent, force and institutionalisation," Ms Sinnott said.

Almost 80 per cent of Oireachtas legislation had EU origins, "so a European disability directive would have a formative effect on Irish legislation".

An online petition can be signed at the  www.1million4disability.euwebsite.