Mr Justice Feargus Flood is expected to express concern at the Government's failure to produce rights-based disability legislation at a public meeting this week.
The judge chaired the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities which advised the Government in 1996 to produce a rights-based Act aimed at allowing all disabled people to reach their full potential.
The State-appointed group is to hold a public meeting at the Mansion House to express concern at the delay in producing such legislation, eight years after its original recommendations.
The meeting comes when the Government is finalising the Bill withdrawn in the run-up to the 2002 general election in the face of protest from disability groups. The legislation was discussed at Cabinet last week and it is understood that amendments were agreed, according to Government sources, that were "aimed at improving the Bill".
They are understood to centre on the right to a needs assessment, the structure of an appeals process for people who feel their services are inadequate and protection for people with genetic diseases from being unfairly discriminated against.
It is also expected to contain a provision stating that health spending on the disability sector must be a priority. As a result of the amendments, the Bill will be further delayed and it is now unlikely to be published until later in the next Dáil term, which begins in April and finishes in July.
Meanwhile, organisers of the meeting say it is aimed at emphasising the fact that the "single most important recommendation" of the commission has still not been achieved.
The commission report recommendations, accepted by the government of the time, said: "A Disabilities Act should be introduced which sets out the rights of people with disabilities and means of redress for those whose rights are denied.
"The Act should . . . make reasonable accommodation to meet their [people with disabilities] specific needs."
One member of the commission, Mr Arthur O'Reilly, said yesterday that members were concerned no such legislation had been introduced. The meeting will take place on Thursday at noon in Dublin's Mansion House.
