The consultation that led to the new National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027 was inclusive and was welcomed positively across the board by disabled people and their representative organisations. It raised hopes and expectations for civil society organisations and their members. More than a year later, however, the housing strategy implementation plan initially expected in June 2022 has still not been released, in spite of the urgency and despair faced by many disabled people waiting for housing. This forms part of the wider lack of implementation regarding the housing crisis. The disability capacity review published in 2021 called for consequent investments to be made to address the housing support needs of disabled people. However, the promised action plan has also not been published yet.
There is a worrying theme of a lack of timely implementation and funding of disability policies. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, which commits signatories to "recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others," and to ensure that, basically, disabled people have the right to choose where to live and with whom to live on an equal basis with everybody else, has not been realised because we need to resolve the housing issues affecting people with disabilities before we can realise that right. Adequate funding, effective collaboration and robust management, oversight and reporting must form integral components of implementation. In particular, sufficient funding must be provided to all areas of disability housing policy. We have the decongregation process for moving people out of nursing homes and we must deliver sufficient, fully accessible housing and support provision for those disabled people who are currently living in the community but want to live independently. There are so many who live with aged parents, for example.
As for budget 2023, only a fraction of the overall increase for disability services has been allocated to improve the capacity of residential care, while the disability capacity review stated that addressing both demographic change and unmet need would range in cost from next to €230 million to €550 million a year by 2032. There is a huge level of housing need among the disabled population. More than one in four people who are homeless, 27%, have a disability, and 2,419 people are still living in congregated disability settings, despite the initial deadline to complete decongregation by 2018. More than 1,300 people with disabilities aged under 65 are living in nursing homes, as highlighted by the Ombudsman in his Wasted Lives report in 2021, and 6.6% of households on the social housing waiting list have an accommodation requirement due to disability. Some disabled people report being on the social housing waiting list for ten years or more. The waiting time for people with disabilities has increased in recent years, while it has decreased for those on the general social housing waiting list. More than 1,500 people with intellectual disabilities live with a primary carer over the age of 70, and more than 450 of those family carers are now aged over 80. Those figures are likely to be underestimations of the level of need as we hear from many disabled people with housing needs living with families or in unsuitable, inaccessible homes who are not on the social housing waiting list due to not thinking it will be successful or because they do not know the process to apply.
The delay in the effective planning of the implementation of the new housing strategy, as well as the lack of acknowledgment of the delay itself and the lack of clarity on the timeline, is an insult to the thousands of disabled people across the country struggling to access housing.