Mr. John Dolan:

Senator Hayden asked both a general question and a more specific one. The OECD report advises that we keep going and get to the 3% by 2015. There is great frustration. We hear that the troika told us to do something so we must do it. The message from the OECD is that we keep this going. The Government is faced with stark choices. Disability is a universal risk among the people of this country. There is a great deal of it around, but it is a risk for everybody. People and families are faced with the result of decisions. Before this Government took office both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste said, in their last pre-election television debate, that disability was their first social justice priority. That is the choice that was made and other things must fit in behind that. I believe it was a good choice because it affects every stratum of society. It is a risk everybody carries and they cannot carry it regardless of how much money they have. The Government must do it. The Government must make its choices and the choice it has made is that what is taken out next year and the year after will be two thirds from services and one third will come from the tax take. They are choices. I would not like to be the Government. It is very difficult, but the choices have been outlined and must be followed through. There is also the question of whether the patient will be killed by the cure, to use the old cliché. We are genuinely concerned there will be so much erosion that it will be a massive problem afterwards.

On the universal means testing, the Senator seemed to be saying that people get sliced and diced through different means tests in different places. Is that not a simple, no-brainer suggestion on how to join things up? We have all these machines whereby we can know who has been in one place or another. We have all the technology but we still cannot do a first fix means test on people. I will not go into how delightful means tests are and so forth, but it is unbelievable that we cannot join up systems properly between Departments and that people, on top of all the hassle, keep getting asked the same questions. Of course, if it is for a particular area, the second stage questions must be different, but the basic stuff about one's means is the same, regardless of whether one is dealing with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Social Protection or the Department of Education and Skills. That is a very practical, basic step in respect of cross-departmental areas.

A bulwark or protective screen around disability, chronic illness and disabling conditions is a protection for everybody, not just for one sector of society. People are not queuing up to be disabled no more than we would queue up to have car accidents, but we pay our insurance. This would be an insurance for everybody.

I hope my comments are helpful.