Disability Federation of Ireland Newsletter June 2007

The Election is over and now we must continue to remind the elected candidates of the commitments they made during their campaign. Disability must be kept at the top of the Government agenda to ensure that people with disabilities are enabled to fully participate in all aspects of society.

Estimates & Budget 2008 marks an important opportunity for the newly elected Government to demonstrate their commitment to the disability sector and progress the implementation of the National Disability Strategy (NDS). DFI continues to pursue similar issues to these that we promoted during the election campaign. These high level issues are:

• To progress the implementation of the Cost of Disability Payment,
• To adequately resource current service provision by voluntary disability organisations,
• To identify for 2008 and beyond this, objectives and outcomes for the NDS, having regard to the vision and long term goals for people with disabilities as set out in 'Towards 2016' and,
• To provide resources to support their capacity to collectively promote the implementation of the NDS.

A key factor to influencing the Budget and driving a successful campaign is to create alliances across our member organisations. We want to ensure that our voice remains united and strong, as we ultimately strive to achieve the same goal of promoting the rights and dignity of people with disabilities in our society.

DFI invites each member to identify their own issues using the four priority headings outlined above as a guide. DFI will facilitate organisations to undertake this work through the assistance from our Support Officers.

Finally, most Estimate and Budget campaigns begin too late, and fail to take account of the fact that several key decisions on funding are made during the summer months. In order to put disability on the agenda and influence the Estimates & Budget 2008 organisations should begin their campaign from now.

We will be inviting member organisations to a day event to meet with members of the new Oireachtas in early October to impress upon them our concerns.

John Dolan
CEO