Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would be remiss of us not to talk about one cohort that I have a particular interest in. As a member of the Committee on Disability Matters with Deputy Hourigan, it is important to say that while we are improving social welfare supports for people, our citizens who have disabilities have been left in the lurch and treated poorly and unfairly. One of the things that has come out of an Indecon report is that the costs of their disabilities on top of their normal living is an average of €9,000 per annum. In whatever context we try to rationalise and improve the lot of people who are on the poverty line, at the top of that agenda should be the rationalisation and implementation of a proper support scheme for people with disabilities. We must also give them the right to work and make sure that them going to work does not mean they will lose out on some of the entitlements they need to live.

This is something that we, as politicians, must put at the top of our agenda.

As we have delved into issues relating to people with disabilities, it has become more and more obvious that they are the forgotten in our society to a great extent. We are living with that now. We talk about the sins of the State through years and the wrongs that were done but, right now, we are living through one wrong, which is the way we treat people with disabilities. I ask the witnesses to comment on that. We talk about social justice and about making sure that everybody has the right to live. I have a document in front of me from the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice entitled Working Notes: Irish Policy at the Centenary. I was delighted to see that one of the articles therein which is about housing was written by my classmate from secondary school, Mr. Padraic Kenna. As well as looking back we need to look at what we are doing in the present and at the major wrongs that we can put right. I ask the witnesses to comment on that.