Page 5179 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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consultation carried out with groups representing people with disabilities. The words contained in this Bill have been very carefully chosen after that consultation. The words have been chosen to ensure that non-essential elements of a job are not used to exclude people with impairment from those positions. So, they are non-essential elements of a job.
I think everybody in this chamber would agree that it is very important indeed that people with disabilities are brought into the work force and that non-essential elements should not be used to exclude them. I do not see how anybody could disagree with that. The job itself is what matters, and the person's capacity to do the job - not their incidental capacity to make the tea or answer the phone or whatever. So, I think those words are very carefully chosen and should be supported.
Mr Stevenson's amendments are an attempt to water down those provisions. His amendments would allow an employer to discriminate against a person with a disability on the basis that they could not do one non-essential aspect of a job. I think that is quite unacceptable where a part of a job is not considered essential, and we all know what they are. It is just commonsense that that should not be used to exclude a person from a position. The Government opposes Mr Stevenson's amendments Nos 34 and 35, and I trust that the rest of the Assembly will as well.
MR DUBY (10.25): I would like to endorse the comments made by the Chief Minister in relation to the consultation that has occurred, particularly in respect of clauses 46 through to 56, primarily relating to people suffering from physical impairment of some kind. I agree with the Chief Minister; Mr Stevenson's amendments, if successful, would effectively eliminate that requirement of being able to effectively do the core of the job rather than peripheral parts of it. That, of course, is one of the major factors which have placed people with impairment of various kinds at a great disability over many years.
In relation to clause 50, Mr Collaery raised a point relating in particular to Down's syndrome children whose parents wish to enrol them in local schools. I also acknowledge that that is the case and that what we are doing here is effectively shutting the door on those folk, as has been the case for some years. Speaking personally, I must admit that I have put a great deal of thought into that matter over recent times and I have come to the conclusion that it is acceptable to actually discriminate in those cases, because not just one person but a whole number of children in a class are affected. So, I am prepared to accept subclause 50(2).
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