Several dozen protesters, many of them in wheelchairs, have gathered outside Leinster House for a protest which they have vowed to continue overnight.
They have written to the Taoiseach and all other TDs accusing most of them of breaking promises to the republic's 600,000 people with disabilities, and claiming they are being denied equality, rights, and a life worth living.
In the letter, the organisation 'Broken Promises - Disabled People Fight Back' recites a litany of promises which it says politicians who have governed the State for several years have broken.
It highlights the continuing delay in ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which the State signed a decade ago.
The letter accuses Fine Gael of going back on its 2011 manifesto promise to provide grants for personal assistants.
The letter claims that instead of funding more PAs to facilitate self-directed independent living in disabled people's own homes, Fine Gael rolled out limited home-care packages, which the group says are often not in their best interests.
The campaign says it is composed of "ordinary disabled people" who are not affiliated to charities or political groups.
It claims to represent disabled people from the cradle to the grave.
"Most vulnerable citizens in this Republic have been completely abandoned"- @TomClonan Disability protestors vow to stay overnight @rtenews pic.twitter.com/EDBCqHqPgx
— Conor McMorrow (@ConorMcMorrow) September 19, 2017
The letter says pain is not seen by the authorities as an urgent cause for medical care and highlights delays in providing hip replacement surgery and interventions to address scoliosis.
"You create disability by making us wait years for surgery and we become even more disabled, in even more pain, in dire agony and unable to walk or breathe," the letter states.
The campaign accuses previous governments of removing transport grants and failing to implement a promise to restore them.
It says government TDs, past and present, have allowed 1,200 people with disabilities to "languish unhappy and trapped in nursing homes and care homes" when they want the freedom to live independently instead.
The letter's authors blame successive governments for effectively depriving them of citizenship by providing for them extremely poorly.
They accuse the politicians concerned of forcing disabled people into poverty through denying them adequate social support benefits and reiterate the call for a cost of disability grant to help people with disabilities to buy necessities.
"You allow the misery of begging and pleading for 'scraps from the HSE table', a daily, weekly, monthly grind of supplication, often for years," the letter continues.
It adds: "… we need recourse to the courts and the media to tell of our plight. We have cried on TV, radio and to newspaper reporters - begging for the support we need. We are demeaned – humiliated."
The facilitators named at the end of the letter are sisters and well-known campaigners Margaret and Ann Kennedy from Greystones, Co Wicklow, and Frank Larkin.
They accuse politicians who have wielded power and those currently in office of ignoring the extent of isolation in the disabled population living with their own families "where there is little support and help".
The group also laments the great hardship that is caused by the failure to deliver accessible housing to disabled people.
The group says this creates homelessness or forces people into housing that is sub-standard or not fit for purpose.
It says a homeless double amputee will be on an overnight 'vigil of despair' at the Merrion Square gates of Leinster House.
The protesters demand an urgent meeting to discuss a list of demands with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Minister for Disability Finian McGrath and Minister for Health Simon Harris.
The demands, all of which they want to be conceded immediately, are:
- Ratification of the UNCRPD;
- Reinstatement of mobility/transport grants,
- Full personal assistant support for all disabled people with direct payments and self -direction of the PA by the grant recipients. They say this was promised in the FG manifesto 2011;
- Accessible social housing/affordable housing to enable all 1,200 disabled people living in nursing and care homes to live independently in their homes instead. They say this measure must include all disabled people forced to remain in their childhood home, with parents and/or relatives, because there is no accessible independent living structures to support them.
- A Disability Living Allowance
- Recognition of the social model of disability, with the removal of disability from the HSE, which is accused of using a 'power and control' model which demeans and humiliates people with disabilities.
Mr McGrath this afternoon said it is his intention to ratify the UNCRPD before the end of the year.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, he said the first two stages have been passed through the Dáil.
He said he hoped to bring a memo to Cabinet by the end of this month.
Mr McGrath said he wanted to ensure that the legislation could stand up to scrutiny.
He said that while this was going on, Government was investing seriously in services for people with disabilities.
