Ms Fleachta Phelan:

I completely agree with all of the concerns the Senator has raised. At a fundamental level, there are two things we need to do. One is we need to support disabled people who can work and want to work and make sure it is beneficial for them and, as the Senator said, that it does make them more vulnerable because of the things they have to forgo. One of the big problems with the Green Paper was that it did not acknowledge all of the structural barriers to employment and it was silent on that. That, along with the focus on the requirement to engage that was originally there, set off a lot of alarm bells based on the experience that disabled people have and the systems they have seen in other parts of the world very near to us.

We need to address the structural barriers to support people who can work. We know we have one of the lowest employment rates comparatively at EU level and we are about 20% below that level. It is clear, when we look at the EU level, that many other countries do not cut off benefits and supports that are disability-specific so quickly, based on income and what people earn. Our colleagues in the European Disability Forum, of which we are the Irish member, are often scratching their heads at the fact we are such a wealthy country yet we come bottom of the league tables both on poverty and unemployment. That is part of the reason. Even not very radical organisations like the OECD are saying we need to decouple medical card entitlement. In fact, the OECD called for a universal healthcare system, but it says that we at least need to provide people with medical cards, transport access and a free travel pass.

We know there have been improvements in the system in recent years and people can hold a medical card for a period, but what happens after five years? I know somebody who had that exact cliff edge, having worked for five years and then lost their travel pass, and I know the financial implications it had. If we do not provide those cost-of-disability supports, the risks are too high and we also see that in-work poverty is higher for disabled people because all of those extra costs are not factored in.

There are examples even in the UK system, where a level of supports are provided in accessing work and as part of the personal independence payment. We are inclined not to appreciate bits of the system across the water. There are many problems with it, but there are aspects that really do factor in the cost of disability and provide support. That is one part.

The second part is that we need to provide an adequate income for people who cannot work. This needs to be much higher than what we provide at the moment. As we heard this morning, the flip side is that, if we address the issue of services and supports, some of those costs will come down significantly.

I want to pick up on the adaptation grant piece. I know the committee has discussed the housing adaptation grant previously but it has been almost two years since DFI made a submission to that review. As the committee will know, the maximum grant a person can receive is €30,000. At the time, we recommended that this needed to increase to €60,000 at the minimum but that was two years ago so the cost has probably increased again. We do not know what is happening with that. It is really important to follow up on that. We need to provide an adequate income. I attended the National Economic Dialogue on behalf of DFI on Monday. We participated in a number of workshops. I was at a very vibrant and engaged workshop with the Minister and many of us present raised these concerns. There is a line that work is the best route out of poverty. I am always very concerned about that because there are many people living in this country who will never be able to work so we need to make sure that we provide them with supports.

The Senator spoke about financial independence and the right to independent living. Article 19 of the UNCRPD is extremely important in that regard. She also asked whether the Department might be in breach. I am not an expert on the UNCRPD so I could not comment on that point in particular but I will say that, year in and year out, the poverty statistics show how much we are failing people. There are also significant poverty reduction targets for people with disabilities in the roadmap for social inclusion. These are fairly moderate and I question the idea that our aspiration is lower for our disabled community and that we will accept a higher rate of poverty for them than for other citizens and people living in the country. During the period we have been tracking this under the roadmap, the poverty rates have been increasing rather than decreasing. The committee on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also raised this with the delegation from Ireland earlier this year. That is probably a good bit from me.