Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On that, it strikes me that refundable tax credits is another measure that has been talked about before. So many of the schemes we have are delivered through tax reliefs. If people are under a certain threshold, they are not really benefiting from them.

My last question concerns an issue I raised with the Ombudsman, namely, the intersection on age and disability. A concern raised in the past, when I was a member of the then Joint Oireachtas Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection, was that once people are in that older age group when they reach pension age their disability needs and some of their access to disability supports and schemes seem to be curtailed. As we heard, that was one of the reasons the mobility allowance scheme was found to be out of sync with the Equal Status Act. Is that a frustration or an issue that has been raised with the witnesses through their offices? Is it the case that people who are over the age 65 or 66 and who are trying to access disability supports are finding themselves instead rooted into general age-related supports that do not address disabilities? Is that an issue that has been raised?