The Department of Finance is under pressure to drop opposition to costly disability legislation that would give the disabled the right to sue the State if they are not granted adequate services.
Yesterday, the Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Willie O'Dea, said he would be reluctant to prepare new legislation for the Cabinet unless it granted the disabled legal rights.
The Minister will today meet disability groups who are pushing for a guarantee that the needs of all disabled people will be independently assessed.
Earlier this year his predecessor, Ms Mary Wallace, had to withdraw her proposed Disabilities Bill in the face of opposition from lobby groups.
The Wallace legislation proposed to improve the rights of the disabled to transport and, more significantly, to better community services such as respite care.
Following pressure from the Department of Finance, her legislationincluded a clause that would have prevented the disabled from taking the State to court.
Since then, both Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have committed themselves separately and jointly in the Programme for Government to producing rights-based legislation.
Yesterday, Mr O'Dea told The Irish Times: "What is the point of laying down duties in a piece of legislation if it does not give some way in which those rights can be vindicated by people who are unhappy?
"I can't see myself as an individual bringing in legislation which imposes duties without imposing remedies. I am not capable of bringing that in."
Clearly preparing for a battle with the Department of Finance, the Minister of State said his predecessor had had "the best of intentions".
"She was balked by the Cabinet and Finance," he declared.
The attitude of the Department of Finance to rights-based legislation was clearly outlined in the December 1999 "Toward Equal Citizenship" report, which reviewed progress in the area.
"The Department of Finance cannot accept these recommendations which imply the underpinning by law of access to and provision of services for people with disabilities as a right.
"This right, if given a statutory basis, would be prohibitively expensive for the Exchequer and could lead to requests from other persons seeking access to health and other services without regard to the eventual cost of providing these services," the report said.
A committee led by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform assistant secretary, Ms Sylda Langford, has been examining the issue since the Wallace legislation was withdrawn.
A second committee representing disability groups has been working in parallel to agree a common line between them.
