Referendum sought on banning discrimination against disabled people

THE Irish Council of People with Disabilities has begun a campaign for a constitutional referendum to add a clause banning discrimination against people with disabilities.

The council says it is "shocked and dismayed" at the Supreme Court decision to declare the Employment Equality Bill unconstitutional. The court ruled last week that clauses in the Bill outlawing discrimination against the disabled would interfere with the property rights of employers.

"Employers have been given the opportunity to openly discriminate against people with disabilities without any recourse for an appeal by the people directly affected," said Mr Frank Mulcahy, chairman of the council.

Speaking at the campaign launch in a Dublin hotel yesterday, Mr Mulcahy said the Supreme Court ruling had taken disability "back to the Dark Ages, when property was more important than people".

The council is organising a national petition and hopes to get 100,000 signatures.

It is also seeking written commitments from the leaders of the political parties, individual election candidates and the social partners to the civil, social, political and human rights of people with disabilities.

So far, the outgoing Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, has indicated his support, as has SIPTU. The list of parties and candidates who have backed the campaign will be published before election day.

The Review Group on the Constitution last year proposed adding an anti discrimination clause, and suggested the following wording: "No person shall be unfairly discriminated against, directly or indirectly, on any ground such as sex, race, age, disability".

Mr Mulcahy said disabled people were "totally alienated" from the political system. More constituency clinics and political meetings were held in inaccessible places and no political information was made available to blind people in braille. To his knowledge, not a single person with a disability was standing in the general election.

Disability was a social issue, not a medical one, he said. The Supreme Court had laid the blame on people with a disability and ignored the huge barriers that were placed in their way each day. Even finding a hotel accessible by wheelchairs for the press conference had proved very difficult.

. Awards of the Positive to Disability symbol were made yesterday to Aer Lingus, the ESB, the AIB group, the Environmental Protection Agency, Smithkline Beecham, Waterford Crystal, Kare, the Irish Council for People with Disabilities and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. The award is organised by the National Rehabilitation Board.