Mr. R?n?n Hession:

I am not yet a “Dr.” but my two colleagues are.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss the Green Paper on Disability Reform: A Public Consultation to Reform Disability Payments in Ireland. I am the assistant secretary general at the Department of Social Protection with responsibility for policy on working age income supports. I am joined by Sarah Waters, principal officer with responsibility for disability policy; and Dr. Devesh Singh, the Department’s chief medical officer.

The Minister for Social Protection published the Green Paper on Disability Reform and launched the associated public consultation on 20 September 2023. The public consultation will run until 15 December. The Green Paper is available in plain English and accessible formats. The aim of the Green Paper is twofold: to better insulate disabled people who cannot work from poverty and deprivation and to encourage a higher level of employment for people with disabilities, which will enhance their participation in society and will, in turn, reduce the risk of poverty and deprivation.

The commitment to examine a reform of long-term disability payments has been set out in several key policy documents: the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2025-2025, the Pathways to Work Strategy 2021-2025, the Make Work Pay for People With Disabilities report, and the programme for Government. As the Green Paper points out, disabled people in Ireland face a high cost of disability, high poverty risks and low employment rates. The survey on income and living conditions, SILC, shows that the at-risk-of-poverty rates for people with disabilities is 35.2% compared with 5.8% for the wider population. The employment rate for disabled people cited in the Green Paper is 37% compared with 73% for the general working population. For comparison, the EU average is closer to 50%.

The Indecon cost of disability report found that the overall average annual cost of disability in Ireland ranged from €9,482 to €11,734. The report made a number of key recommendations, which helped to inform the approach in the Green Paper, including that the levels of disability payments and allowances should be changed to reflect the different costs of disability by severity and type of disability, the concentration of any additional supports should be targeted to those most in need and who faced the greatest additional costs of disability, and a high priority should be given to facilitating an increase in employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities.

Before I set out the substance of the Green Paper proposals, I wish to explain what we mean by "Green Paper". A Green Paper is a Government proposal on how to improve something or solve a problem. It does not claim to be the best way or the only way. Its real purpose is to encourage thinking and discussion and to prompt suggestions. It is, therefore, a useful tool in a public consultation as it provides focus and ensures everyone is working with the same information. Therefore, the features proposed in this Green Paper should not be taken as definite. They are proposals designed to help interested parties think about what might work and to encourage a focused debate around key design issues to reform disability payments in Ireland.

The first of the Green Paper’s main proposals is the introduction of a three-tiered personal support payment. In effect, this would replace the invalidity pension, disability allowance and blind pension, although it would still be possible to qualify for the payment on a contributory basis or via a means test. Broadly speaking, this mirrors the approach with the State pension, where there are parallel contributory and non-contributory streams. Rather than the current one-size-fits-all approach, under the Green Paper proposals, people with a very low capacity to work would get a higher payment rate. The proposed higher rate is the same as the State pension contributory rate, which will increase to €277.30 from January. People in the lowest tier with a moderate to high capacity to work would receive a payment at the current rate of disability allowance and be provided supports to find training and employment opportunities suited to their needs. People with a more limited capacity to work would be placed in the middle tier and their payments would be halfway between tiers 1 and 3. They would be offered appropriate employment supports and services. I highlight what the Minister has emphasised regarding this tiered payment structure: nobody will see his or her payments reduced and nobody will lose his or her payment, nor will secondary benefits be affected.

The second aspect of the Green Paper is the introduction of new in-work supports. The current system of disregards would be replaced by a working age payment model. This would create a greater link between welfare payments and employment earnings to ensure a person experienced an increase in income where he or she took on additional work, subject to a threshold.

The third aspect of the Green Paper involves addressing inconsistencies and anomalies within the system. The paper proposes standardising the eligibility and age criteria of the new contributory and non-contributory personal support payment. It is also proposed to raise the qualifying age for disability allowance to 18 years to bring it into line with the other disability payments, and to extend the payment of domiciliary care allowance to 18 years of age, with the associated carer’s support grant.

A key consideration when we were preparing the Green Paper was to ensure any proposals were in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. While every Department must respect the spirit of the UNCRPD, there are two articles of particular focus for our Department, those being Article 27 on work and employment and Article 28 on an adequate standard of living and social protection.

Article 27 of the UNCRPD recognises the rights of disabled people to work on an equal basis to others. The Green Paper seeks to target employment supports in a way that is appropriate to a person’s capacity. Some 26,000 disabled people are working and availing of the Department's income or employment supports. We know that many more would like to pursue their employment ambitions, subject to their capacity to do so. We would like to do more to help them.

Article 28 of the UNCRPD recognises the rights of disabled people to an adequate standard of living and social protection. The tiered payment structure attempts to address this right to an adequate standard of living by ensuring those with the greatest incapacity receive a higher weekly payment, which will help to insulate them from poverty.

Article 4.3 of the UNCRPD commits state parties to consult closely with and actively involve disabled people through their representative organisations in the development and implementation of legislation and policies. The Department has consulted disabled persons' organisations, DPOs, in the planning of the consultation process and we are holding a number of consultation events so that disabled people, DPOs and disability groups can all engage with and give feedback on the proposals. The first of these events was held in Dublin last week.

I wish to address some points that have been raised in the early stages of this consultation and that, in our view, do not accurately represent what is being proposed. First, the Green Paper does not propose cutting people off from their payments. The Minister has been emphatic in stating that nobody will have his or her payment reduced or removed on account of the Green Paper proposals. The Government’s objective is to increase people’s payments or to provide more employment supports for those who can and want to work. The intention is to offer people more, but in a targeted way. We know that, without targeting, we would be spreading limited resources thinly, which the cost of disability report specifically advised against.

Second, comparisons have been drawn between the Green Paper proposals and the previous reforms undertaken in the UK. The UK system involved an approach of functional assessments to establish payment eligibility, with the prospect of people losing their payments. There has been widescale criticism of that model, with several reports pointing out deep failures in the approach taken and its delivery. We are not proposing the UK system. In the Green Paper approach, the assessments will help to inform decisions about payment increases and the targeting of employment supports. Again, I should emphasise the Minister’s clear commitment that nobody would see his or her payment reduced or removed. However, if people feel that tiering is not the right way to target payments and supports, we are genuinely open to alternative and better ways.

I should also address concerns about the assessments. We have already done assessments for 220,000 of our customers. The assessments are not new. We have been doing tiered assessments for partial capacity benefit for more than ten years. The approach is not based on the medical model nor the UK functional model but on an holistic approach, termed the “biopsychosocial model”. My colleague, Dr. Singh, will expand on this point if it is of interest to the joint committee.

Third, I wish to be clear that the Green Paper is not a cost-cutting measure. Based on a conservative estimate, the Green Paper proposals, if introduced, would increase spending by more than €130 million per year.

We would welcome engagement on the Green Paper proposals and we look forward to open discussions. In particular, we are keen to hear ideas about what might work better. As the Minister has pointed out, the easiest thing for her to do would be to ignore reform. These payments have not been reformed in years or even decades. However, the current approach is leading to poorer outcomes for disabled people. We do not wish to cause anxiety or stress for our customers on disability payments by initiating these conversations, but we hope that the end point will be an improved system that works better for them.