Employment for people with disabilities ‘a priority’

Chairman-designate of National Disability Authority appears before Oireachtas Justice committee

Employment for people with disabilities is a "high area of need and importance", the chairman designate of the National Disability Authority has said.

Helen Guinan told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality it was an issue high on the authority's agenda.

Highlighting key areas of work for the authority, Ms Guinan said a 10-year comprehensive employment strategy was among them.

She said this could deliver “real change in the lives of those who have a disability or those who acquire a disability”.

READ MORE

Other key goals of the authority included providing advice on ratifying and implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

It was also focused on ‘universal design’ - the design of “places, products, services, information, communications and IT so that they can be readily accessed, used or understood by people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability”.

“I am conscious that other countries are keen to follow the operation of such a centre and that the centre is playing a key role in standards development at national and international levels,” Ms Guinan said.

Committee members raised concerns about issues such as access to public transport for people with a disability, and about the lack of strategic provision for integrating children with special needs into mainstream schools.

Ms Guinan said she had spent many years working with, or on behalf of, children and young adults with intellectual, physical and sensory disabilities.

She recently retired as principalof St Paul’s Special School in Cork.

Ms Guinan told the committee the NDA was “in a unique position in that it sits independently of the disability sector and of government departments and agencies”.

“It is not a charity and it is not a service provider. It is not a representative or campaigning organisation. It therefore has a critical role to be the independent advisor.”

She said the authority had a duty to ensure that the information and advice it delivered to Ministers and officials was “informed by robust evidence, research and knowledge of the lived experience of persons with disabilities and an understanding of the policy context”.

The committee will now inform Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald of its engagement with Ms Guinan, chairman David Stanton said.

He said it would be useful for the committee to have a briefing from the NDA’s Centre for Universal Design.