Introduction

This chapter considers potential changes in policy structures that can help to advance the aims of Ireland’s National Disability Strategy, drawing on the lessons learned from the comparative study and international best practice and from the detailed analysis of the current Irish system undertaken in the previous two chapters. In considering how these implementation and monitoring mechanisms can be most effective in advancing the National Disability Strategy, it will highlight the balance between delegation and cooperation in achieving policy. Structures for ensuring participation and consultation with people with disabilities in developing disability policy will also be discussed.

The purpose of this chapter is to consider structures for effective policy implementation at national, regional, and local levels, with particular emphasis on innovative examples of implementation taken from other jurisdictions, building on the analysis provided in Chapter 4. In so doing, the pragmatist challenge to legal liberalism will be discussed along with ways of addressing this challenge through structures that adopt a “new accountability” approach. This idea complements the success factor of transparency and accountability discussed in Chapter 4. Structures that underpin accountability and help to enforce legal rights will also be considered, with particular examples from Australia, which although not formally included within its National Disability Strategy, are vital in achieving the aims of domestic disability law and policy. Ideas on structural reform in other policy spheres will also be applied to the disability context to overcome challenges in achieving effective implementation. Finally, this chapter examines the guidance the CRPD can provide in terms of structural reform, with a view to mechanisms for implementing the aims of national disability strategies.