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

The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 includes a commitment to develop and consult on a straw man proposal for the restructuring of long-term disability payments. That is to simplify the system and to take account of the concerns expressed in the Make Work Pay report and the issues Members are raising today. The cost of disability research report was published by my Department in December 2021 and is feeding into preparation of the straw man reform proposals. Work on that straw man is at an advanced stage. Those are the things we are looking at. I intend to carry out a wider consultation process with all the stakeholders and advocacy groups following publication. We will take into account the different issues Members have raised here.

I take Deputy Ó Cuív's point that this gets a bit complicated. The only thing is that half the people on domiciliary care allowance go onto disability allowance and then some do not have an employment record, so there are other things to look at as well.