Ms Amy Hassett:

I will continue on the issue of social protection. As Ms Phelan talked a lot about, for disabled people, particularly for disabled gender minority people, poverty is a major barrier to realising an independent and adequate standard of living. The costs of disability can be significant, and insufficient support is available to meet them while avenues to employment are restricted or closed off to disabled people. As a result, disabled and gender minority people living in Ireland are exposed to high levels of deprivation and social exclusion, as Ms Phelan spoke about. Indecon published a report last year which stated that the cost of disability can be up to €11,734 and this cost rises with the number of impairments or conditions an individual experiences. This indicates that the disability-related social welfare payments available are wholly insufficient to allow disabled people and their families to reach even a minimum standard of living. It is for these reasons that we have broadly supported the assembly's recommendations on social protection. We believe it is absolutely essential we adopt a fully individualised social protection system and that social protection payments and supports should be set at a level that lifts disabled people above the poverty line, prevents deprivation and supports an adequate standard of living. We also support the assembly’s recommendation on pensions and a universal basic income. We are disappointed the recommendations do not include a specific reference to the cost of disability or a reflection on how means testing of disability supports places recipients in a dependent position within families.

We also want to highlight the interaction between financial independence and gender-based violence for disabled women and gender minorities. As stated by the assembly in its open

letter, there is no place in our society for gender-based violence. According to an Irish report, disabled women are, on average, three times more likely to be subjected to intimate violence compared to non-disabled women. While there are many different reasons for this, as highlighted by our members' consultations and backed up by international research, disabled women's lack of financial independence plays a major role in this. Lack of financial independence has been found to be one of the most significant risk factors for being exposed to intimate partner violence and represents a major barrier to escaping an abusive relationship.

We are encouraged to see that within the recommendations produced by the citizens' assembly on care and social protection there is no suggestion of measures which disempower or deliberately uproot the lives of disabled women and gender minorities in the name of safety. When abuse is directed at disabled gender minority people, we are often met with safeguarding responses that remove disabled people from our communities, disempower them and ultimately fail to protect them. As calls for increased safeguarding powers grow louder, we want to be clear that we do not support this and they do not protect us. We need to examine both the causative and protective factors relating to the violence against disabled women and gender minorities, just as we do for their non-disabled peers, in order to substantially address and reduce this violence. Approaches which rely on a safeguarding approach fail to look past assumptions about our inherent vulnerability to the reality of our lives, and risk restricting or denying our human rights, including our equal right to autonomy, in the name of keeping us safe.

We are encouraged by the steps taken by the committee to prioritise the voices and views of disabled people and their representative disabled persons’ organisations or DPOs on all issues which

impact our lives, as required by the UNCRPD, and hope this marks the beginning of a fruitful and ongoing conversation between the committee members and DPOs which ensures no-one is left behind when implementing-----