I welcome the Minister to the House.
Disability Allowance: Motion
I move:
That Seanad Éireann:
acknowledges that:
- Ireland has promised to fully ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as per the Programme for Government;
- the National Disability Authority and the Disability Stakeholder Group have recently published reports that show Irish Government Departments are failing to make sufficient progress to meet the minimum requirements for disabled Irish citizens, as set out by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD);
- disability services for children are in failure countrywide, with a crisis in the recruitment and retention of physiotherapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists;
- tens of thousands of Irish children remain on waiting lists, denied the necessary therapeutic interventions within the critical windows of opportunity with their age and development; this delayed, mostly absent, treatment leads to many young people being denied their full potential;
- on Tuesday, 9th May, 2023, the Minister for Finance responded to a question regarding the budget targets by saying that in 2023, his Department was forecasting a general Government surplus of €10 billion; next year the budget surplus is expected to increase to €16.2 billion;
- on average, people with disabilities live with a permanent cost of living crisis; the Department’s own ‘Cost of Disability in Ireland Report’, published in 2021, shows the extra cost in Ireland of being disabled ranges from €9,000 to €11,000;
- this is before a disabled citizen pays rent or tries to feed themselves; the current Disability Allowance is €11,440 a year, and barely meets this additional cost of disability itself;
- over 100,000 disabled citizens live below the poverty line;
- the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Heather Humphreys, proposes to target disabled citizens for ‘medical assessments’ to ‘categorise’ their disability into three levels, each revolving around a ‘capacity to work’;
- on Wednesday, 20th September, 2023, Minister Humphreys met with disability support groups before publishing a Green Paper on Disability Reform, saying the following:
- ‘people who are not able to work will get a higher payment rate. The proposed higher rate is the same as the State Pension Contributory rate which is currently €265.30 a week;
- people in the lowest tier with the highest capacity to work will receive a payment of €220 a week and will be provided supports to find training and employment opportunities suited to their needs;
- people with a more limited capacity to work will be placed in the middle tier and their payment will be half-way between tier 1 and tier 3. They will be offered appropriate employment supports and services.’;
- Ireland is currently the only country in the European Union that does not provide a legal right for a person to access all the supports listed in an assessment of need or equivalent document;
- many people with disabilities nationwide are not getting the supports they are entitled to; therefore, the support people in tier 2 and tier 3 will actually get is not clear; they might even get no support at all;
notes that:
- the reforms proposed by the Government are similar to the Work Capability Assessment introduced as an UK austerity measure in 2008; the results of that policy were as follows:
- as part of these work-for-benefits schemes, a French company called Atos Healthcare was contracted to assess people to see if they were entitled to disability payments; this was aimed at reducing the number of people receiving benefits;
- multiple deaths were reported to the Department of Work and Pensions; doctors at Atos even said that checks were being done too quickly and that the system was biased towards declaring people fit for work;
- there was a surge in suicide among disabled citizens in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with some cancer patients forced to stop treatment to work for benefits; one double-lung and heart transplant patient was deemed fit to work and died nine days later;
- Atos bosses even admitted that 50 per cent of the people they were assessing could end up destitute;
- Whistle-blowers in Atos came forward and GPs united to try and shut down the programme;
- Atos eventually made a £500 million settlement to the Department of Work and Pensions;
- due to the failures of the Work Capability Assessment more broadly, there is discussion within the UK Conservative Party about reforming it;
- this system has been brought thoroughly into disrepute and earlier this year the Westminster Work and Pensions Committee stated that there was a ‘pervasive lack of trust’ in the assessment system;
- funds that could be spent on providing supports for people with disabilities will instead be spent on conducting assessments to see which tier they fall into;
- supports are not being provided to people who can work, such as interpreters in the workplace for members of the deaf community; similarly, supports are not being provided to people on the autism spectrum;
- it is completely inconsistent with the Government’s current, and expensive, PR campaign titled ‘Disability Rights are Human Rights’;
- it is inconsistent with the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future, which states that the Government has ratified the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities, which it has not, and that the Government will empower people to choose the supports that most meet their needs;
- it is inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities;
calls on:
- the Minister for Social Protection and other members of Government to:
- immediately stop the proposals listed in the Green Paper on Disability Reform;
- forthwith ensure that the Disability Allowance be made a universal, non-means-tested payment;
- raise the Disability Allowance to the level of the PUP payment to take over 100,000 disabled citizens out of abject poverty;
- ratify all protocols of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the lifetime of this Government.
Senator Clonan, are you sharing time?
Yes, with Senator Craughwell. I will do 12 or 13 minutes and he will take up the balance.
I thank the Minister for coming here. It is very much appreciated. I want to talk about the Green Paper on disability reform. I have it here with me and I have gone through it with a fine-tooth comb. It is an extraordinary document. I want to give the context in which it has been published. Ireland is an outlier when it comes to disability rights. Ireland is an outlier when it comes to every single outcome for disabled citizens. Suboptimal medical outcomes, isolation, poverty, homelessness - we are one of the worst jurisdictions in the European Union in which to have a disability on every measure. We have been shouting this from the rooftops at every meeting of the Committee on Disability Matters and every meeting with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth as regards disability matters. The disabled persons organisations, DPOs, have been very vocal on all these points. We are all aware of the plight of children and young adults who face delayed operations for scoliosis in Temple Street and Crumlin hospitals and who have extreme complications as a consequence of those delays. That is emblematic of the situation that confronts disabled citizens in Ireland. It is in that context that this document is published.
I will foreground it by saying that the chief executive of the HSE has acknowledged that Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People has failed. Disabled citizens cannot get appointments with medical practitioners for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, treatments or interventions. They are chronically delayed beyond the therapeutic window and beyond their developmental windows. Hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of children and young adults and their families cannot get medical treatment, cannot get medical appointments and cannot get even assessments of need. It is in that context that this Green Paper proposes to medically assess a quarter of a million disabled citizens on the basis of their capacity to work. This is a very misguided proposal.
I will go through the document. It is a proposal document. On the first page it sets out what the proposal is, and it is one proposal and one only: "a tiered income support system would replace the current flat system." That is it. There is no other proposal in the document. To my mind - and I am an academic, a researcher and a journalist who has been publishing and analysing for the past 25 years - it is a statement of intent.
The Minister's foreword acknowledges two very important things on page 2. It acknowledges the poverty that confronts most disabled citizens. One hundred thousand fit the definition of living in poverty, with 20% of disabled citizens living in constant and abject poverty. The way to get them out of that poverty is to make disability allowance a universal, non-means-tested payment. As the Minister herself rightly identifies, her own Department's cost-of-disability study identified an additional extra cost to disabled citizens of €9,000. The Indecon report, which was commissioned in 2019, not in 2020, and published in 2021, indicated that the additional cost was between €9,000 and €16,000. We appreciate the modest increase in the disability allowance in the budget yesterday. Disability allowance, prior to the increase yesterday, amounts to about €11,440 per annum, so it does not quite meet the requirements of the extra costs imposed as ascertained by the Department's own commissioned studies and the studies from within the Minister's own Department. That is another reason carrying out medical assessments of 225,000 people will make no material difference to their personal circumstances but will in many cases place them on a tiered payment, which will be less than the minimum required to take them out of that poverty. The minimum amount identified by the DPOs is the €350-per-week pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, which the Government by its own estimation felt was the minimum required for people to survive on or just above the poverty line.
On page 6 of the document it states that there will be a public consultation. The public consultation closes on 15 December. When and where will this public consultation take place? We have nine weeks to go. Disabled people as a community have to make extensive arrangements and planning to attend meetings. For example, it was originally scheduled to hold this debate later in the evening, and at short notice the time for it was brought forward to 2.30 p.m. Many of the guests I invited, disabled persons, are unable to attend at this time because it is during the working day and when many of them have access to carers and personal assistants. They will not be able to come-----
(Interruptions).
-----during the day, Chair, if I may continue uninterrupted.
I asked for it be changed-----
No. Excuse me. Chair?
Is this a point of order, Senator McGreehan?
-----because a meeting of the Committee on Disability Matters was on at the same time. I apologise. I requested that, if possible, the time be changed because I did not want to miss a meeting of the Committee on Disability Matters.
The point is made.
Senator Clonan is a member of that committee so he is aware of that.
The point is made. I call Senator Clonan, without interruption.
I apologise for interrupting but I wanted to-----
Senator McGreehan does not understand. This has nothing to do with the Committee on Disability Matters; it has to do with the people I invited. They are the people who should be front and centre. How ironic, in a discussion about employment for disabled citizens, that this debate is rescheduled to a time when many disabled citizens cannot attend because they are in the workplace or their place of study.
For example, my son could not attend this afternoon because he is in Dublin Business School.
It says on page 6 that there will be a public consultation. I would like to know when and where. On pages 16 and 17, it refers to three tiers of payment and an extended table of information refers to the blind pension, disability allowance and invalidity pension. This document, in an administrative desktop exercise, replaces those three payments with a three-tiered approach which, ultimately, as it mirrors the UK system, is designed to save the Exchequer money.
There are even more extraordinary elements to this document that I will elaborate on. On page 21, it sets out an aspiration to move away from a binary approach that a person is either assessed as being capable or incapable of work and instead recognise the continuum of disabilities and the different work capacities of disabled people. Instead of asking people whether they can work, they want to ask disabled citizens how much work they can do. It is an ableist, non-human rights-based approach to the interrogation of disabled citizens as to their capacity to work and sees disabled citizens not as autonomous independent human beings with the right to participate fully, as per Article 19 of the UNCRPD and our Constitution; instead, it reduces them to merely economic units.
It defines disabled persons in three capacities, namely low capacity to work, low to moderate capacity to work or moderate to high capacity to work. How could anyone describe my son in those terms? It is a reductive, instrumental, paternalistic and patronising way to frame the lived experience and reality of life for our disabled citizens.
The document also makes reference to treatments and therapies that will assist disabled Irish citizens to participate in the workplace. Those therapies, treatments, interventions and surgeries do not exist within the therapeutic and developmental window. That is a fact, which is completely and utterly ignored and misrepresented in this document.
The section defining, assessing and assigning is the most extraordinary of the document. It proposes that all disabled citizens be subjected to a medical assessment, carried out by the medical review and assessment service, MRAS. I cannot bring myself to read what the document states on page 33. It is proposed that if the new tiered structure is adopted existing claimants, which is how the document describes disabled citizens receipt of disability allowance, will be moved over to the new payment over time and that a programme of reviews will be put in place for these recipients, that is, these citizens. This is the Victorian mobilisation of language, which sees disabled people as recipients or claimants, like the deserving or deserving poor. It is the language of Charles Dickens.
The document goes on to state that the programme of review will take five years to implement. By that logic, it means that, given that there are 225,000 disabled citizens, 1,000 would have to be medically assessed every week, non-stop, for 52 weeks of the year for five years to achieve that. These are individuals like my son who cannot get medical appointments as we speak. My son cannot get speech therapy, yet the Government proposes to have him medically assessed to see if he is fit to work.
Would the Minister like it if somebody called to her house and asked her to come out so they could have a look at her and decide whether she was medically fit to work? They might perhaps tell Senator Boylan she could do a little bit more physical labour. It is the most extraordinary set of proposals and flies in the face of the aspirations for the fundamental human rights of disabled citizens, as set out in the UNCRPD.
How would the Government carry out or pay for 1,000 medical assessments per week? In the UK, the Tories contracted this out to their pals in the private health sector, who carry them out and make huge profits. It is a recurring feature of those assessments that they last between 20 minutes and an hour. I think of all of the medical interventions and medical files on my son, which would need to be carried in a trolley. That some disinterested medic who does not know him would make a decision about his life on the basis of a 20-minute or one-hour assessment is wrong.
I again ask how the Government will conduct 1,000 of these assessments every week, 52 weeks of the year, over five years? Not only that, the document states that after two years, people will face a second review if their condition is not deemed to be permanent. Two years into the five-year system, the number of medical assessments per week will increase from 1,000 to as high as 1,250 or 1,300. It beggars belief that, at a time we have insufficient medical resources to meet the needs of people, the Government would propose to assess people on their capacity to work. This is in the context of everything that I have set out on previous occasions.
By accident or design - I hope it is by accident, although I have my doubts - the proposed three-tier system matches almost precisely the work capability assessment of disabled citizens introduced in the UK in 2008 as an austerity measure, and which is much beloved by the Tories. It has led to a surge of suicides among disabled citizens in the UK, to the extent that last year the BBC in Northern Ireland had a special focus on the surge in suicide among disabled citizens. The work and pensions committee of the House of Commons, dominated by the Tories, stated this year that there was a pervasive lack of trust in the system. We should not go down this road. I am not accusing anybody here of being a Tory or assuming that. I am certain that the people who drafted this document, flawed and all as it is, probably did so in utmost good faith.
We need somebody to second the motion.
I second the motion.
I will speak for another 30 seconds.
Let him finish. I can speak later.
I will respond to the amendments I believe will be brought forward, and which I have had sight of, when we come to the closing remarks.
I ask the Minister not to proceed with the proposal as set out. I know it is a consultation and this debate is part of that. I am rebutting it. I am elected to the House and have a right to speak on it. I ask her to instead make disability allowance a universal, non-means tested payment that will begin to address the extra cost of disability. That would take people out of poverty, and enhance and assist them in their desire to work or participate in the cultural, social and economic life of the State. They are the two objectives the Minister set out. That is the way to do it. The proposals set out in this document will achieve nothing and will not lead to a single job for one disabled person; rather, it will only lead to a mushrooming in the private health sector of people carrying out these assessments.
I have a short few minutes. Can I come in later on?
You can. Please second the motion.
I second the motion.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after “That Seanad Éireann:” and substitute the following:
“notes that:
- the Minister for Social Protection has published a Green Paper on Reform of Disability Income Support payments for public consultation to provide an opportunity for disabled people and disabled people’s representative organisations an opportunity to input to the shape of future reforms to welfare payments for people with disabilities;
- the Green Paper is a consultation paper only that outlines one possible approach to achieving the aim of higher payments and better employment supports;
- the proposals contained in it are intended to inform discussion, debate and to seek ideas for improved or alternative proposals to address the issues, and that the feedback received will help to design and develop a new model of income supports for the Government to consider;
- under the proposals in the Green Paper, nobody who is currently in receipt of long-term disability payments will be moved off a disability payment;
- there is no proposal to reduce anybody’s payment under the Green Paper; rather it proposes significant increases in payments for those with the greatest need;
- the Green Paper’s objective is to insulate disabled people who cannot work from poverty, by providing them with higher weekly payment rates and to provide more targeted employment supports for those who want to work;
- the Cost of Disability Report, published in 2021, following extensive consultation with disabled people, recommended that the levels of disability payments and allowances should be changed to reflect the very different costs of disability by severity and type of disability;
- the Cost of Disability Report also recommended that a high priority should be given to facilitate an increase in employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities;
- the proposals in the Green Paper will assist Ireland in meeting the requirements of Articles 27 and 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding access to employment and an adequate standard of living;
further notes:
- the Government has taken, and is taking, a number of measures to improve outcomes for people with disabilities, including through:
- paying a Disability Support Grant in 2022 and again this year;
- increasing the basic rate of payment from €203 when it took office to €232 per week in Budget 2024;
- introducing a fast-track return to disability payments for people with a disability who take up but cannot sustain employment;
- introducing changes to allow people who leave a disability payment to retain their medical card;
- increasing the income disregards for Disability Allowance payments;
- expanding and increasing the funding of the EmployAbility Service;
- introducing an early engagement model to support people with disabilities access training and employment;
- increasing the period of time for which Domiciliary Care Allowance is paid while a child is in hospital or post-bereavement;
- increasing the Carer’s Support Grant;
- increasing income thresholds for Carer’s Allowance recipients;
- funding and publishing research on costs of disability;
- reducing waiting days for Illness Benefit payments and introducing statutory sick pay;
- increasing payments under the Treatment Benefits scheme for access to hearing aids;
- notwithstanding these significant supports, disabled people continue to experience higher poverty risks, high costs of disability and low employment participation and it is clear that more needs to be done.”
The Minister is very welcome to the House. I am happy to be here to discuss the Green Paper on disability reform. It is a good opportunity for a discussion and I thank Independent Senators for placing it on the Order Paper because it is a discussion that is long overdue.
The Minister has come before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters on several occasions. We have had discussions offline about how social welfare payments and supports create barriers to participation and a situation whereby people with disabilities who have an ambition to achieve their own goals or dreams are prevented from doing so because of the way supports have been designed and developed over decades.
The Green Paper acknowledges how inconsistencies and anomalies have grown up within the system of supports, something that must be addressed.
We must have a very clear proposal for the restructuring of long-term disability payments. The system must be simplified. It has to take into account the concerns of so many people across all aisles of the House and all organisations. Senator Clonan spoke on this, but it is lost in the proposal by the Independent Senators, which is that this Green Paper is a proposal on how to improve something or solve a problem. It does not claim to be the best way or the only way. Its purpose is to encourage thinking and discussion and to prompt suggestions. It is, therefore, a useful tool in public consultation as it provides focus and ensures that everyone is working with the same information. On page 1, it asks people:
therefore, not to take the key features proposed in this document as definite. They are proposals designed to help interested parties think about what might work [not what will work], and to encourage a focused debate around key design issues to reform disability payments in Ireland.
It is very important to highlight this.
Senator Clonan and I speak together on a lot of issues around how the State puts up barriers for people to work. We have the highest unemployment rates for people with disabilities. We speak about full employment in our economy but in fact we do not have full employment because people with disabilities are unemployed when they are well able to work. As the Green Paper acknowledges, those inconsistencies and anomalies stop people and put up unnecessary barriers to people participating in society. This is not only the situation with social welfare, as the Minister is well aware. This goes across every single Department, be it in transport or in health where people are not getting the therapies. It is very important to highlight that.
We know that people with disabilities have less money than other people and that they have higher costs of living. The Indecon report highlights this. My criticism to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is that we are only getting to this point now even though the Indecon report is a couple of years old. We have been pushing and asking the Department for movement on the Indecon report. This is a movement on that. We must look at how we can support people getting into work and getting to live and enjoy this gorgeous country of ours because there are so many barriers, however.
Not everyone will be able to work and work is not the be all and end all. While the Green Paper does not suggest that, if I was to rewrite the motion or counter-motion, I would try to amend the motion by asking how we could improve the public consultation process. Perhaps this is a criticism I have on the Independent Senator's motion. There is not one note on how to improve the public consultation process. There is not one note on how to ensure the public consultation is accessible. Perhaps the length of the consultation could be improved. I would want the DPOs to be supported to engage. We are aware that many of the disabled persons organisations are not funded. They are volunteer led and they do not have the cash to be able to engage in a process. We need to encourage people with a disability to engage in this process. It is only when they engage with this Green Paper that it will change to a White Paper policy document and be the better for it. We can see there is an absolutely medicalised model in this report. We are talking about how fit somebody is to work. With regard to experts, as in people with disabilities engaging in this process, we can learn and the Department can change how this is framed and we can work to improve the lives of people with disabilities.
Today, I ask the Minister to improve the public consultation period. I believe the venues will be announced on 18 October. I ask the Minister that there are more venues, that people are supported to go to those venues, that we would make sure there is transport to those venues, that there is an Irish Sign Language facility at those venues, that people are encouraged and welcomed, and that they contact their local Oireachtas Members and public representatives to engage in this process. The invalidity pension has been around since the 1800s. It is a good day now that we are talking about improving the schemes. I thank the Minister for the opportunity to discuss this today.
I second the amendment.
I thank Senator Clonan for absolutely focusing a light on the future of people with disabilities in this country, and focusing it onto something that is often talked about but rarely acted on. The Minister’s commitment to people with disabilities is unquestionable. I know this myself as a person with a disability. Whenever I have gone to the Minister on issues, not only has she taken them seriously, she has acted on them. That was very evident when a young person - I believe in Mayo - was accepted into a PhD programme and was on the verge of losing the disability payment allowance. The Minister dealt with it and dealt with it swiftly. That person has since had the opportunity to continue in higher education. This is the type of action that has been the hallmark of her Ministry since the Minister took over the Department of Social Protection in providing practical and no-nonsense support, and in dealing with officials in a no-nonsense way.
I have thanked the Minister previously, and I thank her again, for extending the free travel scheme to people who have epilepsy and who could not drive because they were medically not allowed to drive, and for extending it to people who because of eyesight difficulties are not allowed to drive but who may not be under the definition of the legally blind. There are people who have various different eyesight conditions who were not allowed to drive and were medically prevented from driving. They now can get a free travel pass. This is what I call access to transport. This creates and helps to build a level playing pitch.
The Green Paper is no doubt, an imperfect document but at least it is a document. One must start somewhere. One cannot start with a blank page. There has to be ink on a page. While there are elements of the Green Paper I would not agree with, and elements of the language that perhaps could have been done in a more sensitive way, it is a document and is something to work on.
For many years, I have believed that for a young person who is blind at the age of 16 or 18 years of age, getting a blind pension is inappropriate terminology. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland is rebranding and changing its name to call itself Vision Ireland because it is a more positive and more energetic title. The blind pension deems somebody incapable of working and pensions them off from the age of 16. At the time, my father would not allow me to apply for the blind pension because of the connotations associated with it when I was that age.
I am glad we are having the discussion. I believe that on 9 November, an event in Dublin Castle will be open to the public to develop the discussions on this. I fully support colleagues when they say that there should be more. We should have a situation where any person with a disability, any family member of somebody with a disability, any organisation representing people with disabilities or any member of the public who just has an interest in the cause and the rights of people with disabilities, would be able to input into this initial discussion document.
As I said earlier, there is no doubt but that the Green Paper is an imperfect document but we have to start somewhere. I think back to 2011, when the Minister and I were elected to the Houses of the Oireachtas initially. We were coming to the lobbies of these Chambers to vote for disability cuts because we had to in order to save the economy. We were in a situation where Ireland was well and truly broke with not a penny. We had to rebuild our society and our economy. We did that. At least we are now in a situation where we can give payments to people. Currently, 2.6 million people are employed in the State, yet the employment rates for persons with disabilities is not at all where it should be.
Of the legally blind people in the country 83% benefit from payments because they cannot get employment. It is something that troubles me greatly because society is losing a large amount of talent. All we need is to ensure that the workplace is a level playing field and that the proper equipment is there. Sometimes this can be a simple magnifier or another piece of equipment. It may cost a few thousand euro but it would create a job for somebody.
We have a lot of work to do to support businesses, particularly in the private sector, to take a chance on employing people with disabilities. To facilitate businesses taking a chance there need to be financial incentives. At the end of the day private companies have to make money. A practical way for the State to help to improve the employment prospects of people with disabilities would be to create an appropriate grant system to encourage small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations to employ people. There are great companies in the country that go above and beyond when it comes to employing persons with disabilities. There are also some great State agencies in this regard. There are other State agencies that have a terrible record. The ESB, or Electric Ireland as it is called now, has a fantastic record. I could name many others that have an appalling record. The discussion on the future of persons with disabilities in this country needs to happen. We would get more positives than negatives from it.
I have said previously, and it has been acknowledged by many people, that in 2017 when he became Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar made a commitment to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He honoured this commitment. I have no doubt that the commitment that will be made when we finally get to a White Paper will be honoured also.
I welcome Senator Clonan tabling the motion on this very important issue. Sinn Féin believes the measure of any society is how we treat our most vulnerable. We believe in a fundamental baseline of services and supports provided to all, and in services and supports that actively promote a more just, equitable and inclusive society. We can all agree this is not the Ireland in which many people with disabilities live today.
More than 100,000 disabled citizens live below the poverty line. Almost 10,000 children with disabilities have been waiting more than 12 months for initial contact with a specialist team. More than 6,000 people are waiting for a carer to be allocated to them despite being approved. Only one in four of those needing respite services has access to them. This is why Senator Clonan has rightly questioned how we could possibly set about assessing people for fitness to work when we cannot offer basic services to people who have disabilities. Where is the capacity to do this? One would have to ask where are the priorities.
We have a Green Paper on proposals on fitness to work. While Senator McGreehan said it is not definitive it is a working paper that has been put out for public consultation. We all agree that social protection payments need to be reviewed and assessed as we go along to make sure they are fit for purpose. Generally when this is being done it is about being more inclusive and making sure we do not let people fall through the cracks or simplifying the process for people so they do not have to go through the mill and fight the State to get every service they require.
I respect Senator Clonan saying he does not accuse anyone in the room of being a Tory. We have heard much defence of the proposals. This includes that it is a working document and that the public consultation will iron out all of the concerns that people have but we have to look at the context. We have a Taoiseach who in 2016 set about attacking welfare recipients. He held up a poster that stated welfare cheats cheat us all. Recently the same Taoiseach drew parallels between the film "I, Daniel Blake" and "Benefits Street". Alarm bells start going off when we have proposals coming from a Government under this Taoiseach with regard to fitness to work and the deserving poor and those who are undeserving.
I have concerns about who is driving this and what is the agenda behind it. Is it about a system that is fit for purpose? Is it about a system that encourages people who want to work to be involved in the workplace and to live full and independent lives? Is it about trying to reduce costs and cut off people from State payments and services? The concern is that we have a Taoiseach who is very publicly on the record about what he thinks of people on social protection. I am not saying that the Minister is the same but we need to have these concerns put to bed because this is where the red flags come up.
We missed an opportunity in yesterday's budget. We have heard from countless activists and service users who expressed a sense of abandonment. The €12 social welfare increase does little to address the additional costs of being disabled in Ireland. The reality is that it will not even match inflation. We all want to see systems that are fit for purpose but the Minister can understand our concerns when the Head of the Government has put on the record comments that call into question people's eligibility for social protection payments.
Senator Conway spoke out of both sides of his mouth and gave us all a good reminder of how the most vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, suffered cuts during the economic crisis. I support Senator Clonan's motion and I was very proud to sign it along with my colleagues, Senators Ruane and Black. I thank Senator Clonan for bringing the motion to the House. It is very timely after yesterday's budget. We know that people with disabilities in Ireland face significant additional costs in their daily lives and are at higher risk of poverty. I am a member of the Committee on Disability Matters which has heard from many witnesses during my two years of membership. It is estimated that every year people with disabilities face additional costs of between €8,700 and €12,300.
The European Disability Forum's 2021 human rights report stated that 38.1% of people with disabilities in Ireland were at risk of poverty and social exclusion. The Minister does not support Senator Clonan's motion. This sends out a very strong message to people with disabilities in this country. The Minister has an opportunity to be a Minister of change and to support people with disabilities with regard to costs. I will not repeat what previous speakers have already said. We strongly support the motion and we believe it is the right thing to do.
I thank Senator Clonan for bringing the motion before us and I thank the Seanad Independent Group for using its time for it. I am very proud, as are Senators Flynn and Ruane, to have put my name to it. Senator Flynn has outlined the reasons the Civil Engagement Group supports the Bill. I want to very briefly add some commentary and before I do I will emphasise what a remarkable and passionate advocate Senator Clonan is for the rights of people with disabilities. The House is enriched by the contributions of Members who are able to share their lived experience.
Senator Clonan powerfully articulated the massive strain the State’s failure to provide adequate care for people with disabilities places on their loved ones. I thank him for his wonderful passionate speech. He spoke with such emotion and it was very moving.
The proposed amendment to Senator Clonan’s motion emphasises the preliminary nature of the proposals to reform disability payments. However, it is absolutely mind-boggling that such a flawed system, seemingly based on the very cruel and arbitrary approach to disability supports that England employs, is being considered. I echo Deputy Paul Murphy’s advocation of the great Ken Loach film “I, Daniel Blake”, which depicts the horrors that disabled people face in such a system. I do not know if anybody has seen that film but it is very powerful and it would be awful to think that would happen in Ireland.
As the original motion lays out in great detail, people with disabilities are being failed in terms of the long waits for medical interventions, a lack of consistent access to personal assistants to allow them to live independently and the existing disability allowance being far too low for people in receipt of it to pursue creative or personal passions that are in the scope of their ability. There are many problems civil servants could be working out how to solve, yet they are at work copying the Tory party’s homework. It is shocking. This is a solid indication that if the voices of disabled people are reaching the decision-makers in government, they are certainly not being heard and understood.
One way we can ensure that people with disabilities can be heard by government is, as Senator Clonan said, to ratify the optional protocol to the UNCRPD. This would create an individual complaints mechanism that would allow people to raise issues with Ireland's compliance with the convention in front of the UN committee, which would be empowered to investigate breaches and make recommendations. There also needs to be reform to Ireland’s civil legal aid system to enable disabled people to litigate violations of their rights in our courts.
I am pleading with the Minister to accept Senator Clonan’s proposal. She has a good heart and is a good and kind woman. She has the power to accept the motion and I encourage her to consider doing so.
I thank the Minister for coming to discuss this important issue and I thank Senator Clonan for tabling this Private Members' motion. As long as I have known the Minister, she has been very committed to people with disabilities. We see this in what she has done since she assumed the role of Minister for Social Protection, for example, by increasing payments and working with people.
I welcome that this is a discussion paper. We have to put something down on paper for it to be discussed. I work with many disability organisations and many of them intend to make a submission, which is healthy and good. It is about encouraging people to come forward and make their submission because nobody knows better than people with a disability what issues they see as challenging. I encourage all people with a disability and all disability organisations to get involved in the public consultation by making submissions. It is positive that the Minister is having this discussion as it shows she is reaching out to organisations and people.
I deal with one man who has progressive MS. For his own mental health, he would like to be able to do two or three hours a week of voluntary work. Some days, he can be very sick and may not get up in the daytime. Then on other days, perhaps two or three weeks later, he is much better and feels as if he could nearly run a marathon. I mean that in a nice way. He would love to be able to work and to volunteer to help organisations in which there are people with disabilities. He is a very intelligent, well qualified man with many interests. He wrote to the Department, which said he is still noted as not being able to work. Sometimes the response people get can be prohibitive. He was afraid he would lose his payment if he volunteered. Perhaps that is an area the Minister could look at. Some people feel they have a lot to give. This man knows he will never be able to work full time. There are many people in the position that they will never be able to work and they are grateful for the payment and different grants they get.
It is good we are having a discussion. It shows the Department is reaching out to people to listen to what their issues are. There will be a €400 disability support lump sum to be paid to people in receipt of long-term disability payment. All these payments add up. There are also other payments, such as the fuel allowance and the double Christmas bonus. Free travel was announced yesterday for people who are medically certified as being unable to drive. That applies to an awful lot of people with a disability and it falls under the scheme. The Minister made some welcome changes in budget 2024. I know quite a few people who cannot drive from my work with people with disabilities. I know one person who has epilepsy and another who is partially blind. They would not qualify to drive, so they are delighted these changes were made.
I thank the Minister for bringing this paper forward and holding a consultation. I hope all those with a disability or an interest in disability have their say. Without people making that input and getting involved in the consultation, we will not know how people feel.
During the pandemic, the Minister’s Department showed how quickly it can respond with compassion and move the country forward at a time of crisis. Senator Clonan came here with lived experience in disability. On the other side of the House, Senator McGreehan has a major interest in disability issues and has often discussed her concerns with me.
There is a Green Paper on long-term disability on the table. There are difficulties with it and they need to be examined. We need to establish, first and foremost, the Green Paper itself. Is it a consultation paper that outlines one possible approach to achieving the aim of higher payments and better employment supports or could it be a sleight of hand purely to move something in that would ultimately work to the detriment of disabled people? I see the Minister shaking her head and I believe she is concerned about this area.
Disabled people have been at the bottom of the scale in this country for an awful long time. Is the Green Paper part of a plan or is it a draft proposal? Perhaps the Minister can clear that up when she speaks. Kitty Holland wrote in The Irish Times that this proposal is intended to radically overhaul payments for people with disabilities. It always sort of worries me when I hear statements like that. Will it radically overhaul them? The disability allowance is a paltry sum for people who have huge issues. The payment of €220 per week is to be replaced by a slightly increased personal support payment.
I have a serious problem with the medical assessment component, which is critical. The Government cannot get around to the fact that it will spend money that could be used to provide people with supports. I had to be outside while Senator Clonan was speaking but I think the problem is that it is almost impossible to get medical assessed with the resources available at the moment. We are putting a policy in place that it will not be possible to implement because we are not able to carry out the assessments.
We have been told that benefits will not be reduced. However, people may be required to work if they land in tier 2 or tier 3.
If they cannot work, there is a possibility they will lose benefits. We need reassurances about that. We need to know that no one will finish up worse off as a result of this. It happened in the UK and it led to people working in places they were not able for or were not suited to. The Irish version will have an appeals process - the Government is to be complimented on that - but how effective will it be? That is important. We are not claiming the policy here will be identical to the one introduced in the UK by the Conservative Party. However, the same incentives for a similar disaster are there. This policy can only be successful if it determines that people are fit for work. If people do not comply with the Department, they could be struck off and lose their benefits. We need reassurances about that. Otherwise there is no point in spending large sums of money on trying to assess people.
If people have no choice but to opt into a programme for work benefits, they will be less likely to organise and demand better pay and conditions that would be available to non-disabled workers. The voices of people who belong to a small minority group are lessened all the time. We should be deeply concerned about that.
A Government in the future can engage in distortions as much as it likes, but we cannot get away from the fact that little interest has been shown in people with disabilities. My friend and colleague, Senator Clonan, has the lived experience. He knows exactly what goes on in the system. The budget focused heavily on one-off payments. It could have been used to introduce long-term sustainable change that would be more beneficial to those who are classified as disabled. My colleague, Senator Maria Byrne, mentioned people with epilepsy. I have seen epilepsy up close. I have seen the damage it does to one's freedom to move around the country and such things. I am here to support Senator Clonan. It is a pity a counter-motion has been tabled. It would have been nice if this motion was agreed to. There are lessons for all of us in that. I hope the Minister will do the right thing.
I welcome all those from CoAction, Clonakilty, County Cork who are with us today as guests of Deputy Christopher O’Sullivan. They are welcome to Seanad Éireann. I hope they enjoy their stay.
I will not need six minutes. To be quite honest, I am glad that Senator Craughwell was here to take the second slot this afternoon.
I thank Senator Clonan for tabling this motion. How we treat our children, our elderly and our disabled people is a reflection on our country. We have failed in how we look after those three cohorts of people, especially those with disabilities. The Indecon report stated that they would require an increase in the budget of €27.30, yet yesterday €12 was allocated. It is simply not enough. As far as I am concerned, people have to walk in the shoes of someone or of a family member to know what it is like to have disabilities. Senator Clonan has been an advocate since he entered the door of the House. I have been representing parents of children with disabilities for most of my political life, as I am sure everyone in these Houses has. Governments are slowly kicked into action, only when a Prime Time special airs. Parents have to go on TV to get action taken. That is wrong. It is an abuse. They should not have to do that. I commend Senator Clonan on being the voice of disability groups since he entered this Chamber. I support this motion and every motion he will bring forward on the disability sector as long as he is in these Houses.
I thank Senator Clonan and others for bringing forward this important motion. As Senator Black has done, I pay particular tribute to Senator Clonan. I know this matter is close to his heart, given his direct experience of challenges faced by people with disabilities and their families and of trying to navigate the dysfunctional support systems we have. He is a tremendous advocate for people with disabilities.
I welcome the Minister to the House. I always welcome the opportunity to talk about disability services and supports, as the challenges faced by those living with a disability and their families or caregivers can never be overstated. There has been a plethora of issues with disability services for many years that could and should have been treated with much greater urgency. For example, I am thinking of the extraordinarily long waiting list of more than 17,000 people for initial contact from a children's disability network team, CDNT, or the significant staff shortages. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has acknowledged that the 34% average vacancy rate across the teams is feeding into delays. Two days ago, on Monday, we saw reports that CDNT staff face severe safety concerns.
In many ways, the motion tabled by Senator Clonan and colleagues, is simple. It is simply asking that people with disabilities be afforded the opportunity to have the fulfilled lives that many are denied due to financial burdens and financial constraints that come with having a disability. My Labour Party colleagues and I are completely behind the call contained in this motion. Improving supports available to people with disabilities and standing up for the right to live decent and dignified lives is an issue we in the Labour Party have dedicated a lot of time and effort to in recent years. In May, my colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith, brought a motion to the Dáil on access to autism and disability supports. Among other things, the motion called for the provision of financial relief for parents and caregivers who are forced to pay for private assessments and therapies; an increase in accountability of the HSE for child disability services; a workforce management strategy to address staffing shortages in disability services such as the CDNTs I already mentioned; and the introduction of a cost-of-disability payment. The motion brought about a welcome intervention from the Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities. In her response to the Labour Party motion, she made a commitment that if the HSE failed to set up six regional assessment hubs by August, she would bring our proposal for financial relief for parents paying for private assessments to budget 2024. One could be forgiven for thinking the Minister of State meant the regional hubs would be operational and not simply set up. However, they are not in any real sense operational at the moment and after yesterday's budget announcement, it appears the Minister of State has rolled back on her commitment to fund families who pay out-of-pocket for assessments the HSE should be providing. In reality, struggling parents of children with disabilities are no better off. Nothing has changed for them. Families the length and breadth of the country will have been listening yesterday in the hope of some reprieve, some support from the Government or an acknowledgement that they are struggling with the cost of assessments they are forced to bear because of a dysfunctional system and a litany of costs associated with living with a disability. Those families will have been bitterly disappointed with yesterday's budget. They can justifiably question the Government and the Minister of State. I personally commended the Minister of State when she was in the House not long ago, after that commitment was made. It is regrettable, to say the least, that the Minister of State's promise has not been kept to date. No support for assessments, no cost of disability payment and a fraction of what is required has been allocated for the disability action plan. Budget 2024 was not a budget for people with disabilities.
The motion raises the issue of the Green Paper on reform of disability payments. I acknowledge the model set out in the document and the model the Government will pursue is not yet set in stone and that public consultation is under way. I have spoken to several people in recent days and I agree with colleagues that we need to ensure as many people take part in the process as possible. I appreciate the Minister will announce some measures that relate to it. It is important that those with lived experience take part, as we have always said. There are some concerns about the Green Paper. For example, Independent Living Movement Ireland has pointed out that no detail on how need and ability to work will be assessed is contained in the proposal. We will all agree that is an important detail to be missing, even if it is only a straw man proposal at this time. While I accept there is an increase in the payments in tiers 1 and 2 of the disability allowance, invalidity pension and blind pension, the fact remains that the payments remain below the cost of disability, based on the Government's report of almost two years ago. In any case, there are some serious flaws in the model as it is proposed in the Green Paper. It is punitive and plainly the wrong approach to take. It flies in the face of the principle of affording people with disabilities a dignified life. We should not be entertaining the thought of categorising people with disabilities into those who deserve supports and those who do not.
The outcomes with a similar model have been mentioned previously in respect of our neighbours and have been well documented in the text by Senator Clonan, so I will not go into those other than to say that we echo the concerns Senator Clonan raised in his motion. To conclude, I reiterate the Labour Party's support for the motion and its provisions. I urge the Government to take its calls on board and to follow through with hard-pressed people with disabilities, and their families and care givers, who have been let down time and time again. They were let down again, in our opinion, by yesterday's budget. They deserve all the enjoyments of life as much as anybody else. At present, we have 100,000 disabled citizens who are living below the poverty line, which is simply not good enough. Once again, I thank Senator Clonan for putting this motion before us.
First, I welcome our visitors who are here for this debate and thank them for attending. I thank Senator Clonan for raising this very important issue. I think everybody in this House agrees that we need to do more to support people with disabilities. At the outset, I will say that I do not see recipients or claimants, I see people. It has been well documented that the cost of disability needs to be addressed. Ireland’s employment rate for people with disabilities is below the EU average. So, the question is, do we keep doing what we are doing and expect a different result or do we actually try to improve the system for people with disabilities? There has been no reform to disability payments for decades. We have a wide range of different schemes, including the disability allowance, the invalidity pension, the blind pension and the partial capacity benefit. There are different rules and regulations across those schemes and there can often be anomalies. What the Government wants to do and what I want to do is to simplify the system and make it work better for people with disabilities. That is the genuine aim here, nothing else.
The Green Paper that we have published is about recognising that not all disabilities are the same and some people may need extra help. I want to be very clear today. There is no question of anybody having their payment reduced. My objective here is to increase payments, not reduce them.
Hear, hear.
I met leaders from the disability sector to brief them on the Green Paper and I explained that these are draft proposals for public consultation. Consequently, nothing is decided here. The Green Paper does not claim to be the best way or the only way. Its real purpose is to encourage thinking and discussion and to prompt suggestions. The draft proposals in the paper are designed to help people think about what might work and to encourage a focused debate around key design ideas to reform disability payments. It is the same approach we took to consultation on auto-enrolment pensions and pay-related benefits for jobseekers. I am looking for feedback, which we will analyse and build into a final proposal to present to Government. In the consultations on pay-related benefit and pensions auto-enrolment, we took the feedback and revised some of the key features, so I can assure the House the same will apply here.
The background to the Green Paper is the cost of disability report which was produced after extensive consultation with disabled people. It recommended that the level of payments and allowances should be changed to reflect the very different costs associated with the severity and type of disability. As Senators will understand, the people on disability payments range across a wide spectrum of capabilities, from those who have very profound physical and intellectual disabilities and who face significant extra costs to those who have less restrictive conditions. I believe it is right and appropriate that we recognise this full spectrum in our welfare system.
However the current system of payments does not do this. Instead it takes a crude one-size-fits-all approach. That is why the cost of disability report proposed that while we should recognise and acknowledge all forms of disability, we should also differentiate our payments and supports to recognise that disability exists on a spectrum and to target extra resources at those who need it most.
For that reason, the main proposal in the Green Paper is to move to a three-tiered payment, rather than the one-size-fits-all system we currently have. People who are not able to supplement their income with work will get a higher payment rate, set at the level of the State pension contributory, which is moving to €277.30 per week, following yesterday’s budget announcement, or €45.30 per week more than the new disability allowance rate. People with the highest capacity to work will stay on their current rate and will be provided with supports to find training and employment opportunities suited to their needs. People with a more limited capacity to work will be placed in the middle tier and their payment will be halfway between tier 1 and tier 3. They will be offered appropriate employment supports and services. We have to be honest here. Ireland is behind the EU average for employment rates for people with disabilities. I have worked to enhance the supports we have in my Department, whether it is the Employability programme, the reasonable accommodation fund, WorkAbility, or the wage subsidy schemes for people with disabilities. We need to do more to work with people and make them aware of these supports. This is about helping people who want to work; we are not going to be forcing anything on anybody. As I have said, nobody will be moved off a disability payment and nobody will see their current payment level reduced. Quite the contrary, in that many people will see significant increases in payment.
I note that some of the media discussion about the Green Paper has incorrectly stated that a new medical assessment will be introduced to facilitate tiering and that this will lead to removal from payment. I repeat that nobody currently on a disability payment will have their payment removed or reduced in the transition to a new system. There have also been inappropriate and inaccurate comparisons between the proposals in this Green Paper and the UK. I would like to emphasise that medical assessments are already occurring and have been part of the system for many decades. Some 220,000 people have been awarded a disability payment as a result of medical assessments. In fact, tiered assessments are already in place for recipients of partial capacity benefit. Medical assessors already determine whether a person’s restriction of capacity for work is moderate, severe or profound and their rate of payment is based on this assessment.
The Green Paper is not about cutting costs, as was the case with the UK proposals. In fact, based on a conservative estimate, the Green Paper measures, if introduced, would cost in excess of €130 million extra per year. As Minister for Social Protection, I would love to have access to an unlimited budget but sadly, that is not the reality. If we take the current Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures on disability, the proposal to give everyone with a disability a weekly universal payment of €350 would cost more than €18 billion each year.
On a point of order, that is inaccurate.
I am open to-----
I am sorry Senator, but the Minister has the floor.
That is not factually correct.
The Minister has the floor.
The Acting Chairperson allowed points of order earlier, and should allow my point.
I was not in the Chair earlier and the Minister has the floor, Senator.
I will address it but that is factually inaccurate.
Okay. The Minister can continue.
I am open to constructive feedback but proposals for additional expenditure on that basis are simply not affordable or realistic. The Green Paper proposes an alternative solution of increasing disability supports, be they financial or employment-related, for the benefit of people with disabilities. In budget 2024, I was keen to build on previous budgets by increasing the supports for disabled people. The €12 rate increase will bring the weekly payment of disability allowance and the blind pension up to €232 per week and the invalidity pension up to €237.50 per week.
To put this in context, people on these payments are €29 per week better off since I became Minister for Social Protection.
To improve employment opportunities for disabled people, I secured additional money to expand the wage subsidy scheme and reduce the hours threshold from 21 hours to 15 hours. This change is something many of the disability groups called for in the recent public consultation. We will also provide two double payments, one at Christmas and one in January, as well as a lump sum €400 disability support grant for people on long-term disability payments, €200 for those living alone and €300 for fuel allowance. This means a person on disability allowance could potentially receive an additional €2,020 over the next 12 months as a result of these budget 2024 measures. That equates to an extra €39 per week.
I have also placed a big focus on carers. I plan to bring in a pension for long-term carers early next year. I have made significant changes to the means test and I am setting up a working group with the Department of Health to look at the whole area of how we adequately support our carers. I have increased the domiciliary care allowance in the last two budgets. I accept the point that has been made regarding services and therapies, and I know families who outline the same difficulties that have been set out here. There needs to be a whole-of-government response in supporting people with disabilities. I know there has been good progress but there is more work to be done.
Senator McGreehan mentioned the invalidity pension. That terminology is completely outdated. We need to move the system on.
Senator Conway mentioned the case of Catherine Gallagher and her scholarship. She was going to lose her payment, and I felt that was wrong. I changed the law, and we called it Catherine's law.
In response to Senator Maria Byrne, under the wage subsidy scheme that I spoke about earlier, I have reduced to 15 the number of hours that somebody has to work before their employer qualifies for the scheme. This may help the person the Senator spoke about.
I listen when I come here to the points that Senators make and I try to make changes.
I would like to address the importance of consultation. I am very mindful of our commitment in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to consult closely with and actively involve disabled people and their representative groups in changes to policies and services that will impact them. I have already consulted and met with disabled persons' organisations and other disability stakeholders at the launch of the Green Paper. We are organising other consultation events over the coming weeks in Dublin and around the country. We have already set two dates, 18 October and 9 November, and we are also having regional events. Groups have been contacted. We surveyed the groups on preferences for the format and the location. In response to Senator McGreehan, we will extend the timeline if people feel they need to consult more with us.
We will also have Irish Sign Language and, at the request of the disabled persons' organisations, some of the events will be hybrid, that is, they will be either in-person or online. As I said, events will be held in Dublin, Athlone, Cork and other parts of the country. Locations have been chosen by disabled persons' groups using a survey. We want to hear their voice and concerns and it is important we do that. I encourage as many people as possible to come along. If they cannot attend, they can still make a submission in writing or by video through the web page.
I will mention one measure I introduced in yesterday’s budget that has gone under the radar, although I know it has been highlighted in the Seanad. I am extending my Department’s free travel pass to any person who is unable to drive due to a medical condition or disability. Until now, one had to be in receipt of a social welfare payment to get the free travel pass, which meant many disabled people who worked did not qualify. This is a small change but one I know will make a big difference to the lives of many people. That change comes from a place of genuinely wanting to help and make life a little bit easier for people. That is what this conversation on the Green Paper is about. It is a genuine attempt to have a conversation about how we can make the social welfare system work better for people with disabilities. The easiest thing in the world would be to do nothing. Perhaps it would be more politically expedient to continue with the status quo and not rock the boat. That is what happened for decades, and it means we have a system that is not working for disabled people.
We need to take a serious look at how we can do it better. As Minister, I do not want to shy away from that. While these conversations are not easy, we need to be able to engage in constructive debate. I want to hear the views of disabled people and their representative groups. I worked in Cootehill for many years. I know full well the great work carried out in the Holy Family School in Cootehill, which caters for children with disabilities, and also in Drumlin House. I know many of the students attending both places, and their families. I know the challenges they face too. I have an open mind on this and if there are better ways, tell us about them, make a submission and come to our consultation events but let us not try to shut down this conversation before it even begins.
I thank the Minister for her response. This is not an attempt to close down the conversation. It is the beginning of opening that conversation and having it in the clear light of day.
I want to address a point the Minister made. She said that, based on current CSO figures, giving everybody with a disability a weekly universal payment of €350 would cost €18 billion a year. That was never suggested by me or anyone else. What we are suggesting is that people in receipt of disability allowance receive that as a universal payment. That would cost €78.7 million, not €18 billion. In fact, when one takes away the current cost of €49.5 million, it would actually mean an extra cost of just €29 million. That is all, not €18 billion. I wanted to clarify that.
The other matters I wanted to refer to were the comments on the document itself. The Minister said the document does not claim to present the only way or the best way to deal with reform of the disability payments. In actual fact, when one analyses the document, that is precisely what it does. It provides only one solution. The main assumptions of the document and the language used in it are highly prescriptive, highly reductive and highly mechanistic. It is, in fact, a de facto blueprint for a system that, as I said earlier, either by accident or design, is a photocopy of what was introduced as an austerity measure in the United Kingdom in 2008. That system has been brought thoroughly into disrepute.
With regard to the Minister's remarks about the medical assessments, let me be very clear. I am quoting the Minister's document, and under the headings in pages 28 to 34, which refer to defining, assessing and assigning, it sets out very explicitly throughout, and with a concluding quote, that over five years, all 225,000 current recipients of disability allowance will be medically assessed. Let me repeat: that would mean that at least 1,000 disabled citizens would have to be medically examined or assessed every week, 52 weeks of the year, for five years. Given the Minister's statement in the document that the Department would review many of these cases after two years, that number is likely to increase. I heard nothing in the responses from the Government that would address that issue.
I mean that in the context of a population of citizens who cannot get access to an assessment of need or to any of the therapies, supports or interventions contained in such an assessment of need. Let us be very clear: the document and what it proposes - and we are discussing it right now - will do nothing for people like my son or my guests here today. It will submit them to a medical assessment they do not want to undertake. They have already been assessed and diagnosed. That is why they are in receipt of disability allowance. I ask that the Minister not persist with this. I can tell her what its legacy will be. If she thinks a proposal to put tax on children's shoes was politically unwise, I can tell her that the disabled persons organisations are incandescent about what is contained in this document. I know because I am in contact with them every day.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities mandates carers and parents to advocate on the part of their family members and children. I do not come in here as an interested party. I do not come in here as someone with lived experience of disability, although I do, but that is not the capacity in which I am here. I am here because I am mandated to do this by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and I ask the Minister to urge her Cabinet colleagues to do what was set out in the programme for Government and fully ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with all its protocols in the lifetime of this Government.
I never advocated for a universal payment of €350 for all persons with a disability. My proposal is that all persons in receipt of disability allowance would get a standard, universal, non-means tested payment. That is the alternative that should be contained in a document like this. Not a singular, one domain assumption set of prescriptions for rubber stamping.
Amendment put:
The Seanad divided: Tá, 23; Níl, 11.
Tá
- Ahearn, Garret.
- Byrne, Malcolm.
- Byrne, Maria.
- Carrigy, Micheál.
- Casey, Pat.
- Clifford-Lee, Lorraine.
- Conway, Martin.
- Currie, Emer.
- Daly, Paul.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Fitzpatrick, Mary.
- Gallagher, Robbie.
- Horkan, Gerry.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lombard, Tim.
- Martin, Vincent P.
- McGahon, John.
- McGreehan, Erin.
- Murphy, Eugene.
- O'Reilly, Pauline.
- Ward, Barry.
- Wilson, Diarmuid.
Níl
- Black, Frances.
- Boylan, Lynn.
- Clonan, Tom.
- Craughwell, Gerard P.
- Keogan, Sharon.
- Moynihan, Rebecca.
- Mullen, Rónán.
- Ruane, Lynn.
- Sherlock, Marie.
- Wall, Mark.
- Warfield, Fintan.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Robbie Gallagher and Regina Doherty; Níl, Senators Tom Clonan and Sharon Keogan.
Amendment declared carried.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 3.55 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 4.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 3.55 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m.