Ms Fleachta Phelan:

I have a couple of points on the cost of disability. There are many slightly different ranges, so you will hear slightly different figures depending on which version of the Indecon estimate you get. Mr. Hannafin has given the baseline. There are a couple of important aspects. The figures differ for different kinds of disability. There are many data in the Indecon report that are very useful. This is also something that came up in the Green Paper discussion.

Another important point about the report Cost of Disability in Ireland is that it estimates unaffordable additional costs. This is a point many of us made to Indecon when it was going back and forth on the survey that went out to over 4,000 social protection recipients and informed many of the data. There are things that people just forgo because they do not have the money. It was important to give an estimate in this regard. We sometimes forget that the document also gives an estimate for unaffordable additional costs, and this is in the order of €2,706.