Mr. Guillaume Jacquinot:

I want to echo what Mr. Hammersley said. One of the biggest issues we have when it comes to disabled people is poverty. If we look at the last survey on income and living conditions, we are talking about 32.5% of disabled people at risk of poverty compared with 11.7% of the general population. When it comes to consistent poverty, we are talking about 19% of disabled people compared with 5% of the general population. We all know that disabled people disproportionately face the threat of poverty. For many years, disability organisations have been asking for a cost-of-disability payment. Many once-off measures were removed in the very disappointing budget for 2026. It is estimated that people will be €1,200 worse off compared with last year. It is estimated that, with inflation, the cost of being disabled is between €10,000 and €15,000 per year.

The second thing is the income disregard. I have worked with many colleagues who could not work more than a certain number of hours or accept promotion or a pay increase because of difficulties with social services. We need to increase the income disregard. If we look at budget 2026, the income disregard for carer's allowance has significantly increased, from €675 to €1,000.

However, as Mr. Hammersley mentioned, it is still at €165 for disabled people. This needs to be looked into. As we discussed, more initiatives like WorkAbility to reach out to more people are very important. Afterwards, it is a matter of generating awareness among disabled people and employers that support is available. Although the work and access scheme recently replaced the reasonable accommodation fund, and while disability awareness training is a step in the right direction, I hope the take-up of the scheme will be better than it was before.