Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 February 2022
116. Deputy Marian Harkin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the plans being put in place to address the findings of the cost of disability research report published on 7 December 2021; and the way in which it is proposed to reduce day-to-day costs for persons with a disability. [5724/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Minister of State will know, Indecon produced a report on the cost of disability in Ireland at the end of last year. What policies is she putting in place to address the issues raised in that report?
I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to bring the House up to date. The report, The Cost of Disability in Ireland, was commissioned by the Minister for Social Protection and prepared by Indecon International Research Economists. It was published in December 2021 and provides importance evidence as to the additional costs that people with disability face in their day-to-day lives.
The programme for Government contains a commitment to use research into the cost of disability to properly inform the direction of future policy. As the evidence of The Cost of Disability in Ireland report has implications for many areas of public policy, a whole-of-government approach is required to develop appropriate and timely responses and to ensure that everyday costs are reduced for people with disabilities and their families.
For this reason, the co-ordination of the whole-of-government response is being carried out under the national disability inclusion strategy, NDIS. The NDIS is one of two national policy frameworks through which the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland are progressively realised. In addition to advancing key actions under the NDIS, my Department supports the implementation and monitoring of the NDIS by co-ordinating the national disability inclusion strategy steering group, NDISSG. I chair this group and its meetings are attended by representatives of Departments, agencies and the disability stakeholder group, the DSG 6.
The Cost of Disability in Ireland report was considered by the NDISSG in December 2021, within 24 hours of publication. I was very fortunate in that the Ministers, Deputies O'Gorman and Humphreys, and I actually attended the presentation from all stakeholders. The group will examine meaningful action to reduce day-to-day costs for people with disabilities in Ireland. Aligning the findings and recommendations of The Cost of Disability in Ireland report to the NDIS will ensure that recommendations can be properly considered at whole-of-government level and that progress against actions taken will be monitored. We meet every three months. There is going to be a traffic-light system implemented and we will see the progress every quarter.
I thank the Minister of State. We are all aware of the extra costs people face because of disability. Some of these are once-off costs and some are yearly but largely they are day-to-day and week-to-week costs. This report mentions everything from housing adaption costs to hearing aids, travel costs, utility bills, home help and so on. There is really good analysis of these extra costs in the report. For example, the extra cost in respect of food is almost 9%. For fuel and light, it is almost 10% and, for household durable goods, nearly 20%. The report goes through these issues and tells us the types of extra costs people face. It says that the average is approximately €8,000 per annum but that varies depending on the disability involved. For certain types of disability, for example, visual impairment, the extra costs total €13,500. We know what the issues are and we know the costs. I am asking what steps we are taking right now.
If the Deputy were to ask me what is happening right now, I would say that all of the Departments are looking at the cost of disability. She has quite rightly identified that the extra costs faced by people with a disability vary depending on the disability. However, there is a standard-of-living cost as well. A person who has a prosthetic may face extra costs of €20,000, depending on whether their medical card will cover these costs. It might, but it might not cover the cost of the prosthetic they require. It might not meet the needs of a child undergoing two or three growth spurts in a year. That is one of the elements. The other element that was really interesting in the report was how expensive it is for the families of children with challenging behaviours or autism spectrum disorder, ASD, to get extra care and so on. That is being looked at. It is being divided and compartmentalised. Each Department will come back in March with its own suggestions as to what exactly it is going to do.
This is obviously a work in progress. I will bring two further issues to the Minister of State's attention. The first relates to the Housing for All strategy. Within that, there is a strategy for persons with disabilities. It tells us things like disabled people will be at the centre of decision-making. That sounds fine but the question is how is that done and how is it managed? Does the Minister of State have any thoughts as to how she believes that will work?
The other specific issue relates to the ongoing review of the primary medical certificate system. All of us will get emails, if not every week then certainly every month, from people who are trying to access a primary medical certificate. It is extraordinarily difficult to get a primary medical certificate. A review is ongoing. What progress is being made in that regard? I believe it is looking at expanding the range of conditions for which a person can access these certificates.
With regard to the Housing for All strategy, there will, of course, be a stakeholder group involved. Persons with a disability will be at the total and utter centre of that. It is they who will be telling us about universal design, that is, design that ensures that the social housing stock we develop will meet the changing needs of those who will come in and out of those properties. Particularly with regard to disabilities, these needs are always changing. We need to future-proof the housing stock. I am working with various Deputies, including Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to ensure this. I see that Deputy Hourigan is behind me. She is assisting me with the plans in respect of universal design.
Moving onto the Deputy's next question, which related to-----
Primary medical certificates.
-----primary medical certificates, I convened a group on that issue for the first time since 2017. This included officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Health and the HSE. I got everybody around the table because, as we all know, eligibility for the certificate is far too narrow. That work is progressing.
