PEOPLE with disabilities are handicapped by the failure of disability organisations to work together, according to the Munster MEP Mr Brian Crawley.
The disability lobby should be the third biggest voting block in the State after the unions and the farmers, he writes in the latest issue of Insight, a magazine aimed at people with disabilities.
Instead, "the various groups are not an effective alliance. As each group has worked to its own agenda, the Government has been able to pick them off, one by one."
Most discrimination, he says, is due to a lack of understanding. "During my European elections doorstep canvass, it amazed me the number of people whose first reaction on seeing my wheelchair was to offer me money.
Children with disabilities should be educated in the same schools as other children, he says. "There would be a large initial cost but after that I believe funding would be minimal," he writes.
"There is an in built prejudice in our society against people with a disability. Structural barriers are erected. For instance, people with disabilities often cannot get bank loans or life assurance. Education is the key to eliminating that prejudice. If a bank manager goes to school with someone with a disability, he or she sees that person's abilities at first hand."
Mr Crowley says he opposes job quotas, in which a share of jobs would be earmarked for people with disabilities.
"Quotas reinforce discrimination people are given a job because they are disabled. If people don't have the skills, there is no point in quotas. If there were a properly integrated education system, then employers would look at the abilities of a person - not his or her disabilities."