I am pleased to present the National Disability Authority Bill, 1998, to this House. The Bill once enacted will fulfil a Government commitment to establish a National Disability Authority. This commitment is a key element in the Government's programme for equality for which I have particular responsibility as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I am very pleased that my commitment to publish the Bill before the end of this session has been realised and that I am in a position to initiate the Bill in this House.
The publication of the National Disability Authority Bill, 1998, is the culmination of a process which I began in November 1997 when I set up an establishment group for the National Disability Authority and a disability support service. The establishment group was asked to report to Government with detailed proposals for the new infrastructure for disability and for the future location of departmental responsibility for the functions of the National Rehabilitation Board. The establishment group reported to me in June of this year and in July the Government adopted its report entitled "Building a Future Together" and gave approval for implementation of each of the group's recommendations.
The central element in the new infrastructural and administrative arrangements for disability envisaged by the establishment group is the setting up of the NDA. Because of its importance, I have ensured that, to give statutory effect to the new organisation, the Bill was given priority in the Government's legislative programme. The establishment of the authority is an entirely new initiative which assigns for the first time to one organisation a central focus in relation to the provision of services to people with disabilities. The NDA will report to me, as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and will assist me in the development of a coherent approach to disability policy which will have direct application to all service providers.
The Bill will empower an independent authority working with my Department to take a lead role in developing and delivering high quality services to people with disabilities in an integrated way. The new organisation will be a watchdog of standards in services for people with disabilities. Its purpose will be to function as an expert body dedicated to the development of standards in services provided to people with disabilities and to conduct independent monitoring of these services. The NDA will not itself be a service providing agency but it will work in close co-operation with service providers in the voluntary, State and Government sectors.
To assist it in implementing this agenda the NDA will commission independent research and will promote innovative projects. As a dedicated body, the NDA will be a source of guidance and support to all service providers. It will assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities to people with disabilities and secure co-operation in developing the best possible standards. The NDA will offer guidance and support not just to organisations providing services in the disability sector but also to mainstream service providers as they meet their obligations to people with disabilities.
The impetus for the new infrastructural arrangements for disability envisaged by the establishment group is embedded in the concept of maintstreaming. This concept was initially developed as a practical tool to facilitate the development of equal opportunities for women. Mainstreaming for people with disabilities represents a policy approach distinct from isolated initiatives targeted on disability issues, which seeks to integrate as much as possible services for this group with those available to the population generally. In other words, key State services which have a responsibility for identifying and catering to the needs of the community will now also discharge this role in respect of members of the community who happen to have a disability. The mainstreaming approach will not supplant targeted initiatives but will run in parallel and in harmony with them.
The root and branch reorientation in our treatment of disability and disability issues demands radically new infrastructural and administrative arrangements. The template envisaged by the establishment group's report "Building a Future Together" involves not only the establishment of the NDA but also a number of new administrative measures intended to mainstream services for people with disabilities.
We all know that disability until recently has been viewed from a medical perspective rather than as a social issue. Consequently, the traditional logic has been to place responsibility for services to people with disabilities with the Department of Health and Children. Many of these services have been provided by that Department through the NRB. As a result the decision to establish the NDA and to introduce the new arrangements for service provision involves the relocation of the functions at present carried out by NRB.
In line with the principle of mainstreaming, vocational training and employment services for people with disabilities will be provided by FÁS operating under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. In addition, the information service currently provided by NRB will be assigned to the disability support service and will merge with the National Social Service Board to form a new mainstream information providing service. The new service will operate under the aegis of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs which currently has responsibility for the NSSB.
In making its recommendations in regard to the role of the NDA, the establishment group advised strongly against burdening the NDA with functions which would detract from its central activities in relation to the development of standards, policy and research. It is also important that the NDA should not be directly linked to service provision. Such responsibilities would run counter to its role as a guide and support to service providers. For these reasons the infrastructural and administrative arrangements which I have outlined will assign tasks related to service provision to agencies other than the NDA. I am anxious too that the new arrangements do not overlap with the functions of other agencies.
Where grievance procedures in individual cases are concerned I am satisfied that existing mechanisms for redress, such as the Office of the Ombudsman, are appropriate. Provision for redress in the case of discrimination on the grounds of disability are provided under the Employment Equality Act, 1998, and will be extended on enactment of the proposed equal status legislation.
The principle of mainstreaming services for people with disabilities sets the context in which the new NDA is being established. This principle underpins the report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities entitled "A Strategy for Equality" which was published in November 1996. The Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities was set up to listen to people with disabilities and to establish what they believe is needed to empower and enable them to achieve and exercise their economic, social, political and civil rights. The recommendations in the commission's report give clear expression to the views of people with disabilities and to the policy direction they would wish to see Government follow. The mainstream arrangements for service provision being introduced and the establishment of the national disability authority are key recommendations of the commission.
The gap that exists between what can ultimately be achieved to empower people with disabilities to exercise their economic, social, political and civil rights and what is being achieved now is a knowledge gap. The NDA will provide the link between Government policy and funding for disability and the services and quality of service being provided to people with disabilities. As an expert body, it will contribute to informed policy from which I and future Ministers for Justice, Equality and Law Reform would hope to benefit. This will be the role of the National Disability Authority as I envisage it and as I provided for in the Bill.
With the help of the NDA, the Government will be in a position to take a more coherent and responsive approach to service provision for people with disabilities. The National Disability Authority is being set up as a result of the long consultation process among people with disabilities. This led to the report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities and the detailed deliberations of the establishment group which I set up and which reported to me in June of this year. I am, therefore, confident the provisions of the Bill will be welcomed by the disability sector. People with disabilities can be confident that real progress will be achieved in the coming years as a result of the work of the NDA.
I will outline to the House some of the main features of the Bill. The Bill is divided into three parts. Part I contains standard and technical provisions. Part II provides generally for the role and functions of the NDA and the requirements in relation to the members of the authority, its chief executive and staff. Part III contains provisions arising from the dissolution of the National Rehabilitation Board.
I will now explain the main provisions of the Bill in more detail. As already indicated, Part I, comprising sections 1 to 5, contains preliminary and general provisions. In particular, section 1 provides for the short title, section 3 provides for the establishment day, section 4 provides the powers to make orders and regulations and section 5 makes provision in relation to expenses.
Section 2 is a definitions section. Disability is defined in this section for the purposes of the Bill as follows:
"disability", in relation to a person, means a substantial restriction in the capacity of a person to participate in economic, social, or cultural life on account of an enduring physical, sensory, learning, mental health or emotional impairment;
Part II comprises sections 6 to 19. Section 6 provides for the establishment of the authority and for its corporate rights and responsibilities. Section 7 provides that the authority will be independent in the performance of its functions.
Section 8 provides for the functions of the Authority. Its principal function will be to advise the Minister and keep him or her informed of developments on any disability of persons which concern issues of policy and practice. In particular, the authority will keep the Minister informed of developments which relate to the specific functions enumerated in the section.
Section 9 requires the authority to prepare and submit to the Minister strategic plans relating to its objectives and strategies. Section 10 empowers the authority, following appropriate consultation, to prepare draft codes of practice aimed at achieving good standards and quality in programmes and services provided to people with disabilities. Section 11 allows the authority to appoint advisory committees and to engage consultants or advisers to assist it in the performance of its functions. Section 12 provides that the Minister may, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, confer additional functions on the authority. Section 13 gives the authority a right of access to relevant information and data held by a public body except where the information or data sought is of a private or personal nature or its disclosure is precluded by law. Section 14 empowers the authority to seek information on matters concerning the provision of programmes or services for people with disabilities from persons, including public bodies, who have overall responsibility for their provision. Where there is a requirement in law to provide a programme or service to persons with disabilities, or where a programme or service for people with disabilities is in receipt of State funding, the authority may seek information regarding the provision of that service and the manner in which it is being provided. Where the authority determines that such a programme or service is not being provided or that it is inadequate or unsatisfactory in any manner, there is provision for the authority to inform the person or body concerned.
Section 15 provides for the submission by the authority of an annual report to the Minister and for the laying of each such report before each House of the Oireachtas. The section also empowers the authority to make other reports to the Minister.
Sections 16 and 17 are standard provisions covering grants and the accounts and audit of the authority. Section 18 provides for the procedures and business of the authority. Section 19 contains standard provisions relating to the seal of the authority. Section 20 provides for the membership of the authority. The authority will comprise a chairperson and 20 ordinary members, including an elected member of its staff. The section provides that the Minister shall appoint the members of the authority and that in selecting members he or she shall have regard to the desirability that a majority of the members of the authority are persons with disabilities, their families or carers.
Sections 21 to 24 deal with the terms of office of the members of the authority, the filling of casual vacancies and the meetings and proceedings of the authority. Section 25 provides for the appointment of a chief executive of the authority. The first chief executive will be appointed by the Minister and, thereafter, the chief executive will be appointed by the authority. Section 26 deals with the functions of the chief executive.
Section 27 provides for the appointment of persons as staff of the authority. The authority is required by the section to have regard to any arrangements for conciliation and arbitration in place when determining the terms and conditions of its staff. Section 28 places a requirement on the authority to put in a place a scheme or schemes for the granting of superannuation benefits to, or in respect of, its staff.
Provision is made that where a member of staff was, immediately prior to his or her appointment to the authority, an officer or servant of the National Rehabilitation Board, the terms and conditions of the superannuation benefits granted under a scheme made by the authority shall not be less favourable than those which previously applied.
Sections 29 to 33 are standard provisions on disclosures, declarations and disqualifications that relate to the authority. Section 34 provides that a review of the legislation is to be initiated not later than three years after the establishment of the authority.
Part III comprises sections 35 to 38. This Part provides the necessary linkage between the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961 and the provisions of this Bill in relation to the authority and the other agencies and Departments concerned.
These sections deal with issues arising as a result of the dissolution of the National Rehabilitation Board and the transfer of NRB staff, assets and liabilities to the authority and the other agencies and Departments involved in the new infrastructural and administrative arrangements. The necessary orders to effect these transfers will be made by the Minister for Health and Children under the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961.
Section 35 is a definitional section on this Part of the Bill. Section 36 makes provision in regard to pay and conditions of service of members of staff of the authority who, immediately prior to their appointment, were serving as officers or servants of National Rehabilitation Board. Except where there is a collective agreement negotiated with a recognised trade union or staff association concerned, such members of staff shall not, while in the employ of the authority, receive a lesser scale of pay or be made subject to less beneficial terms and conditions of service than they had been entitled to in the National Rehabilitation Board.
Section 37 extends the scope of section 7 of the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961 to include the authority or other public body. The public bodies concerned are FÁS, under the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and the new information service being established under the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs. As a consequence, the Minister for Health and Children may, with the consent of the appropriate Minister, make orders to transfer or assign property enjoyed by the National Rehabilitation Board as well as liabilities incurred by the board which have not been discharged prior to such transfer or assignment, to the Authority or other public body.
Section 38 makes a further linkage with section 7(2) of the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961 by providing that, notwithstanding section 37, the Minister for Health and Children may make an order under that Act for the dissolution of the National Rehabilitation Board and the transfer from NRB of property rights and liabilities not transferred to the authority or other public body under section 37, or of staff not appointed to the authority or other public body within the meaning of this section. These provisions deal with the dissolution of the National Rehabilitation Board and the relocation of departmental responsibility for its functions, assets and staff.
I express my gratitude, and I am sure the gratitude of everyone involved in the disability sector, for the work done over the last 30 years by the National Rehabilitation Board. It provided a dedicated service to people with disabilities and did so, particularly in the early years, with little support for, or understanding of, the needs with which it was faced. The change in perception, whereby disability is perceived as a social rather than a medical issue, has led directly to the new approach to service provision for people with disabilities and to the creation of the new authority.
The National Rehabilitation Board has been at the forefront of the call for change. I am confident the staff of NRB who transfer to the new structures will continue to provide excellent standards of service for people with disabilities. I commend the Bill to the House.