Mr. R?n?n Hession:

If you are on a disability payment, the disability pension is slightly higher. Some 155,000 people are on €220, which is the same as other core social welfare payments. That is really at the point where we are saying, "We are trying to give you a social welfare payment recognising that you cannot work". That is the way the current system operates. The disability allowance is based on restricted capacity that will prevent a person from working for at least a year. To get an invalidity pension a person cannot work for a year and he or she is unlikely to be able to work for another year. We recognise that a person cannot work. This is a social welfare level payment that we can provide from the budget we have. What the Green Paper is saying is that not everyone on that payment has the same capacity to engage in employment and supplement their income. We want to recognise that. The assessment we are doing here is not a wider disability assessment. It is purely for the purposes of trying to assess whether there is a basis on which we can target a higher payment. Among those 220,000 people, there are some who will have significant difficulty in supplementing their basic social welfare payment. Many people are calling for a cost-of-disability payment of the order of €20 to €30 a week. We say the people in the top tier will be getting an extra €45 a week in recognition of the more limited capacity or options in terms of supplementing their basic social welfare payment. For those in the lower tier, in recognition that they have some capacity and we would help them realise that in so far as they can or in so far as they are able. That is really the idea.

The tiering is not intended to be a cost-of-disability payment. What the cost of disability report makes clear – there is a lot of granular detail by condition and severity in the report – is that it is very difficult to make generalised judgments about the cost of disability. It also says that the response to the cost of disability is a mixture of different things. In some cases it is services. In other cases, it is grants or income supports. It is not just income supports. It is not just a question of saying we need to provide a payment of between €9,500 and €11,500 to cover the cost of disability. For example, for many people, the highest cost is that relating to their medicines and therapies.

This is supposed to be a whole-of-government response. The health system has to bring that response. For some people, it is the accessibility of public transport. We have a Department that is responsible for that. However, there is an element that is about income supports. Part of what the Green Paper is trying to do is accept that and say that from our Department's point of view, and to address the element that is relevant to income supports, here is an approach we think is worth discussion. That is really what we are trying to do.

The Deputy asked a specific question about whether those costs were actually borne by the person. The Indecon report, and this is a really good point, does not go on to say, "Yes, but these people have medical cards." In other words, it is a very large survey and it is also an econometric analysis. It does not allow us to say at a granular level that, yes, there are these extra costs, but people have a medical card and, therefore, those costs are met.