Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Good morning. I thank the Chairman and the committee for the invitation to be here today. I feel very strongly about the need to support people with disabilities in their lives and their work. During my time as Minister, I have sought to make sure that the interests of people with disabilities and carers remain a focus of my Department’s priorities.

During the pandemic, and notwithstanding the significant pressures on my Department and the Exchequer, I worked to ensure that those on disability and caring payments were supported. Processing timelines on payments were met, even at a time when my Department was dealing with the unprecedented demands of the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. In addition, my Department ensured that those who were on disability and caring payments who lost their employment during the pandemic were able to receive their PUP as well as their primary social welfare payment. This helped to ensure that their incomes were protected from the pandemic.

The topic before the committee today is the independent and adequate standard of living and social protection, with a particular focus on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. Ireland signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007 and the Government formally ratified the convention in 2018, with it entering into force on 19 April 2018. Articles with particular relevance to my Department include Article 28, dealing with adequate standard of living and social protection, and Article 27, dealing with work and employment.

With regard to Article 28 and the adequate standard of living and social protection, this year's spending on illness, disability and carers is an estimated €4.9 billion.

This represents 21.1% of my Department’s total expenditure for the year.

Since 2015 there has been a significant increase in the number of people supported under these schemes. The number of people claiming disability allowance has increased by 28% and the cost of the scheme has increased by 41%. The number of people claiming carer’s allowance and carer’s benefit has increased by 42% and the cost of the schemes has increased by 52%. Invalidity pension claimant numbers have increased by over 7% and the cost of the scheme has increased by 17%. Those figures will give members a good idea of the very significant increases in the number of people my Department is supporting under our various disability and carer support payments in recent years. We are now supporting more people than ever before under schemes like carer’s allowance, disability allowance and invalidity pension.

Budget 2022 saw increases to the maximum weekly rate of carer's allowance, carer's benefit, illness benefit, disability allowance, blind pension and invalidity pension by €5, with proportionate increases for people getting a reduced rate. The fuel allowance and the living-alone allowance were also increased as targeted supports aimed at helping those who are most in need.

Since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection, supporting our carers has been a key priority for me. Last year, in my first budget in the Department, I increased the carer’s support grant to €1,850, which represents the highest-ever rate of payment for that grant. In this year’s budget, I made significant changes to the carer’s allowance means test. The capital-savings disregard for the carer’s allowance means assessment is being increased from €20,000 to €50,000, aligning it with that which applies for disability allowance.

For carers who work, I have increased the weekly income disregard from €332.50 to €350 for a single person, and from €665 to €750 for carers with a spouse or partner. These are the first changes that have been made to the carer’s allowance means test in 14 years. The changes will take effect in June and they will mean that thousands of carers currently on a reduced rate will move to a higher payment. In addition, many carers who up to now did not qualify for a payment due to means will now be brought into the carer's allowance system for the first time. I know these changes have been warmly welcomed by the carers' representative groups. Of course, there is still more work to do for our carers. I am committed as part of the decisions we make on the pensions commission report that we will provide a pension for our carers.

Regarding supporting work and employment under Article 27 of the UN convention, I increased the earnings disregard for disability allowance and blind pension by €20 from €120 to €140 per week. Prior to this, the level of the disability allowance disregard had not changed since 2006. This will support people with disabilities to increase their participation in work and will help to ensure that we make work pay.

People with disabilities who are working will also benefit from an increase in the earnings threshold from €350 to €375 before their income is fully assessed for their disability allowance payment. People receiving disability allowance will also see an improvement in the general means disregard as it will increase from €2.50 to €7.60 per week.

I also want to support employers who employ people with disabilities. That is why as part of budget 2022 I increased the rate of wage subsidy scheme for employers by €1 per hour to €6.30 per hour. This is the first time the rate has been increased for many years.

Employers employing a person with a disability for 39 hours per week will receive a payment from the State of €12,776 per annum. This is a significant incentive for employers to offer employment opportunities to people with disabilities.

I understand that the committee is interested in the question of how decisions to grant or refuse disability allowance are taken and is concerned at what is perceived to be a high level of appeals. Decisions on entitlement to social welfare payments are bound by the relevant provisions of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act. This legislation provides for a transparent and fair decision-making process with specified criteria that must be met by applicants and an appeals process for those who are not satisfied with a decision. A number of conditions must be assessed in order to determine a person’s entitlement to long-term disability and caring payments.

Primary among these is the person’s capacity to work or, in the case of carer payments, a person’s requirement for full-time care and attention. In both cases this assessment is performed by qualified doctors employed by the Department and is based on medical reports submitted by the applicant. It is important to note that the Department’s medical assessors do not question the medical diagnosis presented in the medical reports but use the reports to assess the impact of this diagnosis on a person’s capacity to work or their care requirements. In addition to work capacity or care needs a person must also satisfy either the social insurance contribution requirements or the relevant means test. In the case of disability allowance and carer's allowance, the person claiming the payment must be habitually resident in the State.

There is some commentary that most decisions get overturned on appeal, which is not correct. Most decisions are not appealed and the percentage of decisions that are revised or changed on appeal represents about 12% of all decisions by the Department. The data for 2021 indicate that 28,158 claims for disability allowance were determined, of which 13,289 decisions to award were made. A total of 5,575 appeals for disability allowance were processed, which is equivalent to about 20% of all claims decided, or 37% of unsuccessful claims.

Of the appeals received, 643 were allowed by my Department’s deciding officers following receipt of further evidence with an appeal request. It is not uncommon for applicants to submit additional information following a negative claim decision. In such cases even though the information is received as part of an appeal, our deciding officers and medical assessors review those cases to see if the additional information warrants a revised decision. A total of 2,712 were allowed by appeals officers and 42 appeals were withdrawn. Putting all of these numbers together, claims awarded by appeals officers constituted just 10% of all decisions made in 2021.

No process is ever perfect but I believe that these data indicate that the overwhelming majority of people who are entitled to disability allowance secure that entitlement at first decision and that the appeals process provides an effective means of redress for people who are not satisfied with the first decision.

I will now outline my priorities for this year. As set out in the programme for Government, we will use the results of the cost of disability research commissioned by my Department to inform future policy decisions.

This report, produced by Indecon, has recently been received and is now being considered by the national disability inclusion strategy steering group, chaired by the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. One of the key findings in this report is that the costs faced by people with disabilities vary considerably depending on the nature of the disability faced by a person. Similarly, a person’s capacity for work varies depending on the nature of the disability. Under the Roadmap for Social Inclusion, my Department has a commitment to develop and consult on a straw man proposal for the restructuring of long-term disability payments to take account of this spectrum of disability and work capacity. I have asked my officials to ensure the straw man proposal takes on board the findings from the cost of disability research.

As for employment-related supports for people with disabilities, I have already set out some of the improvements made over recent budgets. In addition, my Department is reviewing the reasonable accommodation grants fund. Stakeholders will have an opportunity to feed into the review later this month and we look forward to hearing this feedback. In line with the commitment in the programme for Government, the wage subsidy scheme paid to employers who employ people with disabilities will also be reviewed this year to improve the uptake of the scheme. My Department will shortly commence rolling out an early engagement approach with young people aged between 18 and 22 years who are in receipt of disability allowance. This was a key recommendation in the Make Work Pay report and a commitment in Ireland’s recent submission on the UN convention. The early engagement approach will see the public employment service offer support at the earliest opportunity to assist young jobseekers with disabilities to achieve their employment goals. Consultation with the sector is ongoing in advance of this approach being rolled out. It is important to note a key principle agreed with the sector is that the approach is voluntary.

I am fully committed to the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The decisions in recent budgets and the priorities for this year show this remains a priority for me and for the Government. Importantly, I emphasise that I and my Department, together with my Government colleagues, are committed to continuing our long-standing practice of consultation and close engagement with stakeholder and representative groups for carers and people with disabilities.

As a final point, I reiterate to members that the Department of Social Protection is here to help people. Members saw that during the pandemic in the speed with which supports such as the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, were provided to people. They are seeing it again now with the supports we are putting in place to help Ukrainian citizens arriving into the country. From my experience both when I was outside the Department as a Deputy and now that I am in the Department as Minister, I have always found the staff in the local social welfare offices to be extremely helpful and courteous. We cannot always do everything we want to do or solve every problem but we will certainly always try our best.

One of the best examples I can give the committee is Catherine’s Law, which I introduced last year. There was a young girl, Catherine Gallagher, who was going to lose her disability allowance payment because she was taking up a PhD scholarship. I certainly did not want to see that happen. It was brought to our attention and I am glad we were able to amend regulations to address it. I know Catherine is getting on well with her scholarship because she texted me last week. Just last week I signed regulations to extend those provisions to persons in receipt of the blind pension. Not every problem can be solved like that, but where there are small injustices in the system and if we are able to fix them, we will always try our best. I wanted to put that on the record and record my thanks to the staff of the Department of Social Protection in the local offices throughout the country. As we meet this morning, they are doing an outstanding job in the different Intreo offices to deal with the Ukrainians who are coming into this country. I was out in Dublin Airport and saw at first hand the work staff are doing there. It is difficult work and it is emotional. They are going beyond the call of duty, as they always have done, to help people at a time of need.

I thank members for their time. I am happy to hear their contributions and answer any questions they may have.