Disability Federation of Ireland Newsletter May 2007

When we launched 'A lot Planned, All To Do' the DFI Programme for Government, we stated that we would examine each Party manifesto against the DFI key demands. The Party manifestos have now been published, and an analysis of the manifestos has been produced.

On May 14th, we held a press briefing to present our response to the manifestos. The briefing was attended by Minister Brian Lenihan [ Fianna Fáil ], Frank Flannery [Director of Elections, Fine Gael ], Ciaran Cuffe TD [Green Party], Joe Costello TD [Labour] and Aengus Ó'Snodaigh TD [ Sinn Féin ]. Each of the representatives responded to the issues at the briefing.

It is vital to keep the disability momentum going at local, regional and national level. There is just one week to the Election. It is up to each organisation to do what they can to raise the profile of disability issues among the candidates and the electorate.

In 'A Lot Planned, All To Do' we asked each party to state in their manifesto that:

"the next Government, will commence progressive implementation of the Cost of Disability payment."

"the next Government, will adequately resource current service delivery by voluntary disability organisations."

"the next Government, will identify for each year of the programme for government the objectives and outcomes for the National Disability Strategy, having regard to the vision and long term goals for people with disabilities as set out in 'Towards 2016'."

Please take every opportunity to ensure that disability stays on the election agenda. We will be putting it to the Parties that the National Disability Strategy in an essential commitment for the new government regardless of what tax concessions spending commitments are made.

John Dolan
CEO