Finlay says O'Dea jibe 'not worthy'

Claims by the Minister of State, Mr Willie O'Dea, that the Labour Party adviser, Mr Fergus Finlay, was using people with disabilities as a political football were described as "unworthy" by Mr Finlay yesterday.

Mr Finlay had criticised elements of the proposed Disability Bill on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, when Mr O'Dea made his comments. He said he did not accept Mr Finlay's bona-fides in this area "for a whole lot of reasons."

"In my opinion, Mr Finlay is doing nothing other than using people with disabilities as a political football, as a mechanism to climb into government and I'm not going to allow this."

Mr O'Dea said Mr Finlay had occupied a central position in the Labour Party, which was in government at a time when disabilities legislation was not provided.

Afterwards, Mr Finlay said he began campaigning on disability issues 35 years ago. He was not political on this issue, as he had praised Fianna Fáil when it made progress on disability issues and had criticised the Labour Party in the past for not doing enough.

Mr Finlay had objected to a provision in the Disability Bill that the availability of resources and staff would be taken into account when requests for services were being dealt with by deciding officers.

Mr Finlay said this was leaving deciding officers with no option but to say "no" to requests if money was not immediately forthcoming. Instead, the Bill should set down targets and time-frames for the delivery of services.

The Government had promised a rights-based Bill, Mr Finlay said, but this was not it. "If you don't have rights, as a person with a disability you stand at the end of the queue."

Mr O'Dea said the availability of resources could not be ignored when services were being considered. "If we left out this provision about resources and availability of staff, then we would have a law in this country which would be impossible to implement."

The National Association for the Mentally Handicapped in Ireland (NAMHI) also expressed concern about the restriction.

Ms Deirdre Carroll, general secretary of NAMHI said new restrictions were being proposed "on what we thought was an agreed right to an assessment of need".

There would never be an impetus to develop services if deciding officers were allowed to reject requests for services because the funding was not there, she said.

The Disability Bill will be published in the next six to nine months, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said this week.

It replaces an earlier controversial Bill which was withdrawn because it did not provide for an independent assessment of needs.