Dr. Amy Hassett:

There are a couple of concrete things. Members will be sick of me saying this by the end of the session but I think the costs are a massive issue. Implementing a cost-of-disability payment would go some way to helping with this. It would help disabled people, particularly disabled women, to cover those costs associated with getting and staying in employment. That is a really concrete thing and it is in the programme for Government. It has been expressed that it is the Government's intention to do this. Again, we were disappointed it was not in the budget for 2026 but we are really going to continue pushing for that.

The second thing we would encourage and which we want to see happen is the removal of means testing of the disability allowance or, failing that, an increase in the income disregards. That €165 is the point at which the disability allowance starts being diminished is not great. It is a particular challenge. We would also want to keep the supports needed by disabled people, such as the medical card and free travel pass. I know that we can now keep this for up to four years once we enter employment, but making that a permanent situation would be a massive help. Making sure that people can still access medical cards and those different supports irrespective of their income would be a massive support. The problem we have now is that it is very difficult for disabled people to enter a job and get to a point where they are earning enough to cover those costs themselves. There is an in-between area where disabled people end up being worse off for quite a while. The concrete measures for me are a cost-of-disability payment, income disregards and the removal of means testing.