John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We have apologies from Deputies Healy and Quaide and Senator McCormack. The first item on the agenda is engagement with witnesses on adequate standards of living and social protection for persons with disabilities. This meeting is a joint meeting involving this committee and the Joint Committee on Disability Matters and I am delighted to be joined by the Cathaoirleach of the latter committee, Deputy Quinlivan.

On the format, as ours is the organising committee I will chair the meeting and the Chair of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters will make some opening and concluding remarks. We have a hard stop at midday so I will invite the witnesses in turn to make their opening statements, which should be limited to a maximum of five minutes. Once these have been delivered I will call the members, in the order they indicate to me, to put their questions. Questions and answers will alternate between the respective committees, in other words, a member of the social protection committee followed by a member of the disability matters committee, and so on. It is important to note each member will have four minutes to engage with our witnesses. This includes both questions and answers. It is therefore essential members put their questions succinctly. In the event the number of members exceeds the seating capacity I kindly ask that members vacate their seats after their questions and answers to facilitate other members engaging with our witnesses. I also ask members to speak slowly, to be very clear in what they are asking, to ask one question at a time and to wait for the answer. I also propose a short comfort break at the midway point at 10.45 a.m. and that we resume shortly afterwards.

I welcome the witnesses to the committee. From the Disabled Persons Organisations Network I welcome Ms Mairead Forde, Mr. Joe McGrath and Dr. Amy Hassett. Ms Forde and Mr. McGrath are onsite and Dr. Hassett is joining us online. From the Economic and Social Research Institute I welcome Dr. Karina Doorley and Dr. Agathe Simon. I also welcome Dr. Mel Cousins of the school of social work and social policy at Trinity College Dublin. You are all very welcome. It is difficult sometimes for us to be in public session but rest assured you are here to express your views and every single one of you is very welcome.

Both committees welcome the opportunity to engage with our witnesses on such an important issue. From a social protection perspective, we are particularly aware of the commitment in the programme for Government to introduce a dedicated, structured cost-of-disability payment and are eager to see how such a support can be delivered from a policy perspective, and crucially, how it can be delivered and implemented. We look forward to engaging with you all and again thank you for accepting our invitation to share your experiences and ideas with us.

I ask the Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters to make some opening remarks.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Thanks very much, Chair. On behalf of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters I am delighted to welcome all the witnesses and to be part of this collaboration between our committees. There are significant linkages between welfare and work. As we heard recently at disability matters committee public meetings, welfare support and the potential withdrawal of same if work is secured is one of the greatest barriers to employment for people with disabilities. In a report in March the ESRI estimated disability costs between €488 and €555 per week on average. People with disabilities face more barriers to participating fully in social and economic life and accessing relevant rights and are therefore disproportionately affected by social and economic shocks. This sustains the increased risk of poverty, social inclusion and deprivation throughout their lives. The Disability Federation of Ireland said budget 2026 "... leaves disabled people poorer, unsupported, and excluded". However, I am looking forward to today's hearing, learning what can be done to address these issues and how a social protection system built on enabling participation must align with the UNCRPD.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Comhchathaoirleach. Before we begin I must read a note on privilege and housekeeping matters, as has to be done at every meeting. I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. In this regard, I ask any member participating via Microsoft Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex. Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make any charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that could be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction. I remind all those in attendance to make sure their mobile phones are switched off or in silent mode.

I believe Ms Forde is going first for the DPO Network.

Ms Mairead Forde:

I am. It is my first time being on this.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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You are very welcome.

Ms Mairead Forde:

Thanks very much.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We are delighted to have you here. You and Dr. Hassett are going to share it.

Ms Mairead Forde:

We are.

Chairs, Deputies and Senators, the DPO Network welcomes the opportunity to be here today. The five DPO member organisations are AsIAm, Ireland's national autism advocacy organisation, Disabled Women Ireland, DWI, Independent Living Movement Ireland, ILMI, Irish Deaf Society, IDS, and the National Platform of Self Advocates. I want to begin by acknowledging the vital work both committees undertake. This work directly impacts the dignity, self-determination, and well-being of many members of our community.

Today, we gather to discuss a fundamental right enshrined in our national human rights strategy for disabled people: the right to an adequate standard of living. The strategy represents a watershed moment. It is more than a policy document. It is a statement of belief that disabled people are rights holders, not charity cases. It affirms that an adequate standard of living is not a luxury or an aspiration. It is a fundamental human right. Today's discussion is essential to translating that commitment from paper into lived reality.

I also want to recognise that this conversation only has meaning when it includes the voices, expertise and leadership of disabled people's organisations. The DPOs in this room, and across our nation, are not stakeholders to be consulted. They are co-creators and co-designers of the solutions we need. Nothing about us without us. This principle must guide every decision the committees make. Our national human rights strategy recognises that this is absolutely necessary, and we must embed it in everything we do going forward.

I will hand over to Dr. Hassett.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

What does an adequate standard of living mean in practice? It encompasses safe, accessible housing; nutritious food; quality healthcare and rehabilitation services; education and vocational training; meaningful employment opportunities; and access to community and cultural life. For disabled people, it means having the assistive devices, personal support and accessibility accommodations necessary to participate fully in society. It means agency, it means choice and it means dignity.

The reality on the ground is sobering. Many disabled people live below the poverty line, struggle to access affordable housing, face barriers to employment, and are denied the basic supports necessary to live independently. Rural areas present particular challenges, where services are sparse, distances are vast and infrastructure is inadequate. The economic burden of disability includes medical costs, assistive technology and home modifications. This often pushes families into deeper poverty. Disabled people and their organisations have documented these realities and we must listen carefully.

The strategy gives us a roadmap. It calls for systemic change across multiple areas. It emphasises that meaningful progress requires the full participation of DPOs at every stage, not just in consultation but in genuine co-creation and co-governance of policies and programmes. Our commitment moving forward rests on several pillars, all grounded in the strategy's principles and requiring the active participation of DPOs. First, we must ensure that disability support systems are adequately funded and reflect the true cost of living with a disability. Here, DPOs must be at the table designing these systems, drawing on our lived experience and community knowledge. We understand what "adequate" means in our contexts, both urban and rural. We must fund this work properly.

Second, we must advance inclusive employment, working alongside DPOs to identify real barriers and co-design solutions. Disabled people want to work. With reasonable accommodations, assistive technology and supportive services, we can contribute meaningfully to the workforce. DPOs can help us understand what works, what does not and why.

Accessibility, too, must become a cornerstone of all development. Whether housing, transportation, digital services or public spaces, universal design must be built in from the beginning. DPOs must lead these conversations. We are the accessibility experts. We also have to bring services closer to rural and remote communities. DPOs in these areas have deep knowledge of local needs and can guide targeted investment and innovative service delivery models.

Finally, our commitment must be to embed DPO involvement in co-creation across all Government initiatives affecting disabled people. This means all Government initiatives. It means adequate funding for DPOs to participate meaningfully. It means genuine power-sharing in decision-making, not tokenistic consultation. It means recognising DPOs as institutional partners, not just voices to be heard. Our national human rights strategy is only meaningful if it leads to tangible change. The adequacy of living standards for disabled people cannot be achieved through top-down policy alone. It requires the wisdom, experience and leadership of the disability community itself and the DPOs that organise, advocate and support our members every day.

The committees have a unique opportunity. They can strengthen our legislative framework, identify funding gaps, recommend practical reforms, and demonstrate that we take seriously the commitment to co-creation. They can ensure that the strategy becomes the foundation for genuine, lasting transformation. Behind every principle in that strategy are real people and real families trying to afford rent while paying for medical care, young people shut out of work, and older people isolated in their homes. Standing with these individuals are the DPOs that have fought for their rights. An adequate standard of living for disabled people is not charity. It is justice. It is recognition that every person has inherent worth and a right to participate in society. It is an acknowledgement that disabled people and our organisations have the solutions. All we need is the wisdom and courage to partner with us authentically.

I look forward to the committees’ work and to working together, with full participation from DPOs, to turn the vision of our national human rights strategy into concrete action and real change.

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I thank the Chairs for the invitation to the ESRI to appear before the committee. We are grateful for the opportunity to discuss our recent work on the cost of disability.

Disability significantly impacts households beyond its effect on their limitations in daily activities and healthcare needs. Households with disabled people face an increased risk of poverty due to a lower average level of education and lower participation in the labour market. In addition, disabled people face a higher cost of living, notably due to healthcare expenditures but also housing accommodations, transportation and so on. Disabled people thus face a double penalty in the sense that they have lower average incomes but face higher average expenditures. Conventional measures of living standards do not always account for these additional costs and thus misrepresent the economic situation of households with disabled members.

It is extremely difficult to estimate the cost of disability. The standard of living method is widely used and estimates, based on self-reported deprivation, the extra income that a disabled household requires in order to reach the same standard of living as a similar non-disabled household. The equivalence scale method is much less used and allows researchers to estimate, based on observed consumption patterns, how the consumption of disabled households differs when compared with the consumption of similar non-disabled households. There are caveats to the results stemming from both methods. Directly asking individuals to assess their level of disability and ability to afford essentials may result in biased estimates if respondents systematically underreport or overreport either of these variables. Results based on expenditure data may not capture unmet need if consumption is constrained by income.

In a joint research programme with IHREC, we estimated the cost of disability in Ireland using both the standard of living and equivalence scale methods. Using the standard of living method, we estimate that the cost of disability is between 52% and 59% of the disposable income of disabled households. This equates to €488 to €555 per week, on average. For households with a member who has severe limitations, we estimate the cost of disability to be 93% of their disposable income. These estimates are higher than previous estimates of the cost of disability in Ireland. This may be due to different methodological choices but may also reflect a rising cost of disability over time, perhaps particularly during the recent years of the Covid-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. We suggest that future work should investigate the cost of disability over time in a harmonised manner in order to understand this. Deducting the estimated cost of disability from the disposable income of disabled households and calculating the at-risk-of-poverty, AROP, rate increases the AROP rate of disabled people from 25% to between 65% and 75% and increases the headline AROP rate for the whole population by ten to 14 percentage points.

These findings are in line with the high financial burdens estimated in the international literature for individuals with disabilities.

Using an alternative method to account for the cost of disability, we derive a disability-adjusted equivalence scale. We estimate that the weight assigned to an additional adult with a disability should be 9% higher than the weight assigned to an additional adult with no disability. With this scale, poverty among disabled people is about four percentage points higher, and overall poverty is about half a point higher, compared with when disability is not given extra weight in the calculation.

The standard of living method is more widely used in the national and international literature relating to the cost of disability. As such, it is straightforward to make international and over time comparisons between estimates. As it is not dependent on consumption data, we have been able to make use of relatively recent survey data to estimate the cost of disability. However, its greatest strength lies in the fact that it accounts for unmet need, which is likely to be particularly acute for households with disabled members who face higher costs of living with lower average income. As such, we are inclined to place more emphasis on the results of this research stemming from the standard of living method than the equivalence scale method, which is relatively untested in the international literature and relies on older data. However, the AROP rates estimated using the equivalence scale method could be considered as a lower bound.

The international and national evidence on disability is clear. Individuals and households affected by disability suffer a double penalty to their living standards as their labour income is lower and consumption needs are higher than non-disabled individuals and households. One way to address the higher rates of income poverty among disabled people is by removing barriers to work that they and their family members face. Achieving this would require significant investment in services such as personal assistance, childcare, education and training, along with changes in employer policies, such as flexible work arrangements and formalised recruitment practices. Income poverty could also be reduced by directly increasing targeted welfare payments or introducing a cost of disability payment, as recommended by the commission on the status of people with disabilities.

However, the measurement of the living standards of households with disabilities also deserves attention. Currently, the most commonly used headline measures of living standards, such as poverty and inequality metrics, account only for income, and adjust this income for household size without reference to disability. To accurately capture national and international living standards, accounting for how these differ systematically for disabled households, there should be more reflection of the consumption side of the equation and how this differs by disability status. One possibility includes calculating disability-adjusted AROP rates, as suggested by the results of this research, in conjunction with standard measures.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Professor Doorley. Before I bring in Dr. Cousins, I remind members that if they want to ask a question to please raise their hand and indicate that to me. I invite Dr. Cousins from Trinity College Dublin to make his opening remarks.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

I thank the Chairs for inviting me to participate in this important discussion. We have heard some of the problems already. I will reiterate some of the issues challenging social protection policy.

As members know, there are very low levels of employment for disabled people in Ireland compared with other OECD countries and a high disability employment gap, which is the gap between people without disabilities working and people with disabilities working. That is particularly high in Ireland. There are rising numbers on long-term disability payments. There are higher levels of poverty among people with disabilities and that would be much higher again if costs of disability were taken into account, as has been done in the ESRI research. Furthermore, there is no overall system to address costs of disability. Those are some of the problems and we have heard more of the issues from previous speakers.

I was asked to look at some of the international experience and what that tells us about what the solutions might be. In doing that we need to distinguish income support policy, which are weekly payments to replace income from employment where that is not possible, such as disability allowance, invalidity pension and cost of disability payments, which should be paid to people whether they are in work or not in work because people in employment have a cost of disability just as people who are not able to work or do not have the opportunity to work.

The numbers on income support payments are rising rapidly. The total number in receipt of long-term disability payments has gone from 150,000 in 2000 to over 230,000 today. Some of that is accounted for in changes in demographics or disability prevalence but it does not account for all of it. There are other driving factors.

The international experience indicates that it is very difficult to get people back to work once they have drifted into long-term disability, so there needs to be much more of a focus, looking at the OECD work, for example, on early intervention and stopping people drifting onto long-term disability payments. I do not mean making it more difficult to qualify for the payments but, rather, through engaging all the different actors - employers, doctors and the Department of Social Protection - in making it easier to keep people in employment. About 40% of the people who go onto long-term disability payments come off the short-term illness benefit, so they have been in employment at some stage. There are a lot of people who can be kept in employment with appropriate policies, which both the previous speakers talked about.

Looking at the cost of disability payments, we do not have an overall system for cost of disability and we are not unique in that. Some other countries are similar to that. However, there are countries that have comprehensive policies to address cost of disability but they have done it in different ways. Some have done it through cash, some have done it through schemes with personalised budgets to support disability services. The UK has the personal independence payment which is about to be reviewed. There have been various proposals to reform the personal independence payment. That is a comprehensive payment that is not means tested which goes to people in employment and out of employment. The idea is to assess people's limitations and what those costs might be. Australia has a different approach. It has the national disability insurance scheme, which provides personalised budgets. People are assessed for needs first of all, there is a plan developed in terms of what they would like to achieve and then a budget is allocated to that person which they or the agency can manage. The disability committee during the previous Dáil had a presentation on this which gave more detail than I have time to provide. That is a different model. Coincidentally and unsurprisingly, neither are cheap. In Exchequer terms, both are approaching 2% of GDP. It is either an Exchequer cost or it is a cost on people with disabilities. If the Exchequer is not picking up the cost or some of the cost then it is the individuals who are faced with the direct cost.

What is the right approach for Ireland in terms of the balance? As we have already heard, the committee needs to talk to people with disabilities and determine what their views and preferences are in terms of the balance. We should ask what fits into the Irish system. We cannot just take a model from one country and put it in another. What is the most effective way of meeting the costs and how do we pay for it? It will not be cheap. Overall, the committee can do a very useful task in terms of trying to develop a consensus that there is a need for reform and also what that might look like.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Dr. Cousins. I really appreciate all the contributions this morning. I open the floor to members for discussion. Given the time constraints, I ask members to adhere to the four-minute allocation for questions and answers. I also ask everyone to be focused in their contributions and remind members participating remotely to use the raise-hand feature. Our first member to speak is Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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I acknowledge this is a very important meeting and thank the Chairs and secretariats of both committees for bringing us together.

This does not always happen. It is measure of how important this issue is that we are discussing today.

I have a number of questions. I hopefully will get a chance to get back in, but my first question is to Ms Forde and Dr. Hassett. Their submission reads, "An adequate standard of living for disabled people is not charity. It is justice." Dr. Cousins referenced work done in other countries. Are people with disabilities and their representative organisations up for the challenge of co-creating and engaging? Have they got the information and are they ready to go to engage with the Government to be those co-creators?

Mr. Joe McGrath:

We are already working as five organisations to co-create. The DPO Network is an organisation with five different disability groups. We cannot advocate or take on the responsibility all ourselves as the National Platform of Self Advocates, so we have to work with the DPO Network to collaborate on things like this. Disabled Women Ireland, ILMI and all the people Ms Forde mentioned feed into this. This is a way of working closely together so that we can come around the table and talk to the likes of the committees this morning and other committees we have talked to in the past.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

I think Mr. McGrath has said everything that came to my mind. We are up for the challenge. The DPO Network fed into co-creating part of the strategy, so we have the ability to do that. There are lots of other DPOs around the country. The key thing for us is that there are a lot of elements of government that would like to engage with us, but very often we are expected to do that on our own resources. That is the big challenge we have at the moment where we are, as individual organisations, trying to scale up our capacity to meet these requirements and participate. The real challenge for us is getting those resources. We need support in getting those resources so that we can scale up our organisations to meet the challenge.

In terms of the expertise and the motivation, we are good and ready to go.

Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent)
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It is great to meet all of the witnesses, including Dr. Hassett, who is online. I thank them for their impact. Nothing for them or about them without them. I am going to make an assumption that we move forward. We have the expertise and the research from the ESRI, Dr. Cousins and work that has been done before. The witnesses know what they need and what they want us to achieve. What resources does the DPO Network needs? What would be the witnesses' priorities for us collectively to work on in order to move towards where we should be to help them have full and fulfilling lives?

Mr. Joe McGrath:

I will take the first question. In relation to how the disability matters committee could help us, it is to fund all the DPOs together or separately. Without funding, we could not be in front of the committees today. I work for an organisation called the Irish Seed Savers Association. If it had been fine today, I would have had to lose a day's wages to come up and talk to the committees. We need core funding to fund our organisations in order that we can look at policies and feed into the disability matters committee.

I also urge the committees to work closely with the Department of Social Protection and employers on behalf of those of us who are lucky to have jobs. Thanks to our suppliers for giving us the chance. We need to have things set up right so that all the committees to do with disability are working closely together, like what the disability matters committee is doing this morning working with the social protection committee and all the mechanisms that are around the table today. When the committees come to a decision, implement policy. Do not leave it on the shelf, please.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

Mr. McGrath's point is spot on. It always is. The funding is a key aspect. We are very much in this space, but to give a bit of context to the committees, the new national human rights strategy has been launched. As part of that, there are stakeholder engagement structures that are currently being set up. As part of that, there are commitments to provide supports to DPOs. There need to be two elements to those supports. There are a lot of great DPOs around the country that are still struggling to fully get their feet off the ground. They need to become legal entities and be legally established. That is a complicated and difficult process. It is also an expensive process. We need to create a system whereby DPOs that want to can access the supports, both the knowledge and the finances, to get themselves off the ground.

The second thing that Mr. McGrath raised was the funding to fund core staff. Mr. McGrath's point was spot on. The members of the DPO Network who are here today are all taking time off from our day jobs to do this. We are delighted to be able to do that. We are also the people who can afford and are able to do that. That changes who comes to the table. It should not be this way. We need core staff to help us do the functions of our organisations. Right now, we are all doing it on our own backs, but if we had core multi-annual funding where we could hire staff, we could come in as the experts and do the bits that we are most primed to do. We are not administrators and stuff. That is our challenge.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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I, too, welcome the witnesses today. It is great to see them. It is great to have this conversation.

I am going to focus more personally on how the increased costs affect the witnesses. Maybe Ms Forde or Mr. McGrath would answer the question. Do they feel that the payments they receive from the State are enough to cover their costs?

Ms Mairead Forde:

No, I do not think so.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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Why is that?

Ms Mairead Forde:

I feel that what we get kind of goes in a week for what I use it for.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

For me personally, I have to pay rent for my house, for fuel and all that stuff. When we get the increase in the new year or whenever the Department of Social Protection signs off on the stuff coming through the Parliament, we could do with that money at the end of December or beginning of January so that we could budget our households when we know that we would be getting the increases from either our paid employment or social protection if we are on disability allowance or disability benefit, if the Senator knows what I mean. For the people who need more support, like people who cannot work, the budget should be increased for them as well. Some of us are lucky to go out and be able to get a job. When people like me are working, we are contributing to society.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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I was interested to hear what Dr. Hassett mentioned about rural transport. I am in a very rural part of the country and transport is a huge problem.

Will Dr. Hassett comment on the additional cost? It is very hard. In my community, there was a pilot scheme for a new hackney service in rural areas where no taxis are available. We tried to get cars but it was impossible to meet all the criteria. I have just checked, and only two vehicles became part of the pilot scheme. Can Dr. Hassett comment on the additional cost of transport for people?

Dr. Amy Hassett:

I would make one small point on the cost of disability overall. We need to remember that these costs are different depending on the group and whether somebody is part of multiple groups. I am involved in Disabled Women Ireland. We recently held an event where we talked to disabled women about what costs they face. Their experience was that they face additional costs because they are both disabled and women, and that is true of many other groups, including disabled migrants, disabled Travellers and so on.

I agree that rural transport is a big issue. I come from a rural part of Wexford. There is no capacity for me to use public transport because I cannot get from my house to where the bus is without using a car. There are two challenges. First, we need to make it more affordable for people to get cars. There are groups, such as Physical Impairment Ireland, looking at the disabled drivers schemes and the inefficiencies with those schemes. They are not working as well as they should anymore. The second issue is that public transport in rural areas is insufficient.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. I appreciate that. I call Senator Clonan.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in, in particular Dr. Hassett, Mr. McGrath and Ms Forde. I hear them loud and clear about funding for DPOs. As is always the case, they are the only people here today who are probably not getting paid. They are the only ones who it costs to be here. I really appreciate their time.

I have been sitting on this committee for four years. Every presentation we get is on the same recurring theme. The circumstances for disabled citizens in Ireland are abject on every measure. We are outliers in Europe on this. We are outliers internationally. We are among the worst. We have just had a budget that leaves disabled citizens even poorer than heretofore. Every time we introduce legislation in the Houses to vindicate the socioeconomic rights of disabled citizens, there is huge pushback from the Government. The centre of gravity of that resistance comes from our departed Minister for Finance and the Department of public expenditure and reform. First, why do the witnesses think that is? Why is Ireland an outlier in this regard? Second, do they agree with the first principles? We are the only country in the European Union where there is no legislation to give disabled citizens socioeconomic rights.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I might get the witnesses to answer those two questions.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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I have one last question. Do the witnesses support the universal disability allowance payment?

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We need to give the witnesses the opportunity to answer the questions within the four minutes. I invite Professor Doorley or Dr. Cousins to respond.

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I can give a quick answer to the outlier question. I can only speak based on the research that we have done. We estimated the cost of disability to be between 50% and 60% of the disposable income of disabled households. That was on par with an international study that looked at all European countries. That is not to say it is acceptable. It is very high, but it was very high for all European countries. In that sense, and in the research we have done, where we have tried to estimate the cost of disability, Ireland is in or around where the European countries are.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

The Senator asked about the solutions. Personally, I worked for the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities back in the 1990s. In some senses, the position of people with disabilities has improved. There was none of this recognition of human rights in the 1990s. The whole recognition of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities means the issue has been much more recognised. However, it is not unfair to say there has not been a major improvement in terms of social protection policy.

On the cost of disability, there is a need to develop practical solutions as to what that might be. We heard the reference to co-creation. It is an ideal opportunity to involve disabled people and the groups representing them on what that might actually look like, rather than announcing that we are going to have an annual cost-of-disability payment, or whatever, without engaging with people with disabilities at all. In terms of developing solutions, there is a good opportunity to look at what has worked internationally, what would work here and how we would bring all of the different issues together.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. Some of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked. I want to ask Dr. Hassett, Mr. McGrath and Ms Forde what specific forms of income support would make a difference in the shortest time for them.

On a question for Professor Dooley, her research shows specific higher living costs for people with disabilities. Can she outline the most underestimated cost drivers in current Government policy and how far current disability payments fall short of meeting the real needs?

I also have a question for Dr. Cousins. How effective is Ireland's current social protection framework at addressing poverty among people with disabilities? Are there international models that we should adopt? Would that make a difference?

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Deputy.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I have four minutes. There is one more question that I want to ask. If it is not answered, that is grand. I want to say this on behalf of my constituent, a lady who is nearly 30. She has been on the housing list of Laois County Council, on which I was a councillor for many years. She got a degree, although it was later in life because of her difficulties in operating. She has now received a letter to say she has been taken off the waiting list with Laois County Council because she is slightly over the threshold. I cannot believe that, in this day and age, this can happen to a person. When she was on the housing list, if she could have got HAP, she would have. She could not avail of HAP because there was no rental accommodation - no apartment or house - suitable to her needs. Naturally, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get such accommodation in the community. On her income, she can never afford a house because she can never get a loan because she can never qualify for mortgage protection.

In this day and age, do any of the elected public representatives sitting here today agree with that? No. I have continually harassed the Minister for housing, but he tells me it goes back to the local authority. It does not go back to the local authority. The thresholds are set by the Government. Let that be very clear. The local authority, Laois County Council, is totally annoyed with what has happened. It had accommodation just about ready for this lady after working for years to do it. I think it is deplorable and an absolute disgrace. Every one of us should be ashamed of ourselves to think that this would happen to a lady like that. She has been confined to a wheelchair since birth. I think it is disgusting.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We might try to get the answers. The first question was on what level of immediate support would help.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

The Government made a commitment to change the cost-of-disability payment over the course of this Government. Two years ago, a cost-of-disability payment of €500 was introduced in the budget as a one-off measure. There is no reason we could not have had the exact same thing in this budget. We should absolutely work towards a better system, but that is the quickest thing the Government could do. In the budget every year, there should be a cost-of-disability payment while we work out the best way to do that. That is the quickest way to get money into people's hands.

As to the underestimated costs, this is something I experience on a daily basis. Buying equipment and trying to make your house accessible are difficult. At the moment, many of us are spending a massive amount of money on housing, as is the case for everybody in society. It is impossible to make adaptations to a house if we are disabled and renting because we do not have permission to do that, so we often have to buy equipment. There are a million costs that come up over the course of daily life due to not being able to live in an accessible environment. You have to pay to get rid of some of those barriers. We need to start addressing that.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. We are out of time. I call Deputy Guirke.

Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their contributions. One thing I hear a lot through my own office is that people with a disability were forgotten about in the budget.

How has the current cost-of-living crisis impacted the overall financial situation compared with previous years? What specific Government support or policy changes do the witnesses believe would best help to alleviate the financial strain they face at the moment?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

For budget 2026, we did a post-budget analysis and showed that the withdrawal of the temporary measures was particularly felt by disabled people. They lost disproportionately more of their disposable income in real terms as a result of that withdrawal than other households. With the reliance on one-off cost-of-living measures over a number of years, that was inevitable. These one-off payments were withdrawn because increases to welfare payments were not built into the system in a permanent manner. Dr. Hassett mentioned the €500 cost-of-living payment and that would be a good way to start a cost-of-disability payment. If a cost-of-disability payment is what is going to happen, I would go a step further and say it should not be an announcement from year to year; it should be announced as something that happens every year to give certainty to people with disabilities.

Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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On adequate housing for younger people with disabilities, I have come across a few cases where younger people were put into older care just because there is not adequate housing for them. Is that a big issue?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

That is not my area to answer.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

It is a big issue for people because if they cannot get a house and they cannot get where they want to live, they will probably go into a nursing home or somewhere like that where their needs can be met. Other than that, if people are entitled to housing, the needs of each individual should be met because we are all different. People come with different challenges every year or every couple of months. You are on housing the list now and then you might get a house or you might just fall outside the threshold for your entitlement. For disabled people, as regards housing, everyone is suffering very much and some people are just left to their own devices at times, I would imagine.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Hassett has a comment online.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

A key component of the reason disabled people are not in appropriate accommodation, other than the lack of accessible accommodation, is the lack of supports for people who live in their communities. For example, while Mr. McGrath can have a statutory right to personal assistance in Ireland, irrespective of that, disabled people often end up being institutionalised in their own homes. A lot of people are living in appropriate accommodation but a lot are stuck in their family homes. This is also particularly an issue for marginalised communities, for example, disabled women. This puts us at increased risk of abuse and things like that because we do not have the opportunity to move to a safe location or to have choice over where we live. Many of us stay in dangerous situations because it is better than being in an institution such as a nursing home. The lack of community support is a massive issue.

Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)
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I thank all of the witnesses for coming in and making their contributions. This is an extremely important issue. I know preparation takes a lot of time. As Senator Clonan said, the people from the DPOs are the ones who are not paid in this room, so it is really important to hear from them. I thank them for all the work they do and for the eloquence with which they have spoken to us on these issues.

The thing that struck me most was the point about disabled people being rights-holders, not charity cases. That realisation of rights has been the major failure of the State over many years. I am sorry for that, genuinely. To turn the conversation a bit to what social protection can do - I am on the social protection committee so I am quite concerned about those particular issues - I noticed from the contributions that the weekly payment needed to be approximately double what it is today, so between €488 and €555 per week. The question of moving from assistance to inclusion for people is the major challenge in this area.

I will turn specifically to the wage subsidy scheme and employability. Dr. Cousins said the best source of income support is from decent employment. I could not agree more. The high level of unemployment in Ireland versus the OECD average is worrying. I would like to hear how we should incentivise employers to do more. The subsidies given to employers under the wage subsidy scheme increased to about €1.80 but the figure decreases the more disabled people the employer employs, which seems completely regressive. What would the witnesses like to see for employers to be able to do more?

Dr. Mel Cousins:

There is a whole range of issues, some of which we touched on earlier, about employment policy but they probably fall outside the scope of what I can talk about. From a social protection perspective, the important thing is to try to prevent people drifting into long-term disability benefit. People initially go on illness benefit. People may just have a flu or whatever and go back to work quickly but a lot of people do not go back to work. They remain on illness benefit, then stay on it long term and end up on invalidity pension or disability allowance. As I said, the OECD evidence and international evidence indicate that you need to work with people like that within five or six months. Even by five or six months, the rate of return drops dramatically. You need to engage with employers. In the Netherlands, for example, which has been one of the most successful countries, employers are responsible for paying sick pay for much longer than here. If there are a lot of people out because of disability, then the employer pays for it. That incentivises the employer to make the workforce more accessible for people with disabilities and to have better human resource policies so that people are not put on disability payments because of bad human resource policies. There is a whole range of measures for the gatekeepers, for example, in the case of doctors, to encourage them to get people back to work rather than just writing a sick note because that is the easiest thing to do. A range of policies has been tried in Scandinavian countries, for example, there have to be dialogue meetings between employers and the people out sick to look at how they can go back to work, whether they can go back part time, what supports they need and so on.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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I thank our guests this morning. The discussion has been very inspirational, as always. I thank the witnesses for their comments, particularly Mr. McGrath, Ms Forde and Dr. Hassett. I want to stay on the issue of work. I was taken aback by Mr. McGrath thanking his employer for giving him a chance. Will he comment on where he works, the name of his employer and what he does so we can get an idea of the type of jobs people are doing? That is important in the overall conversation we are going to have today.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

I work for an organisation called the Irish Seed Savers Association. We preserve old varieties of Irish apple trees and stuff like that. I have been there for 24 years. I started in 2001. My work is seasonal. If the weather is bad, it may too slippery for me to go in. In the winter, I can do this type of work. The Deputy knows what I mean.

I work for them three or four days per week during the summer. I cut the grass for them every summer.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

I work in UCD. Disabled people are pretty much involved in every industry across the country. The focus for us is to find ways to support people to stay in employment. A huge part of that for disabled people is that the transition back to employment is really difficult. We need to keep the protections and supports people have when they are on social protection when they move into employment. I refer to like medical cards, public transport access and so on.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Dr. Doorley mentioned remaining barriers to work. I am not sure if that was in her presentation. Will she comment on what she classes as the remaining barriers to work?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I probably have less of an idea of what those barriers to work are than the other witnesses. If you look at the statistics, we have a large disability-employment gap. It is larger than in other countries. There we are definitely not doing well by international standards. We have to figure out why that is. We can only do that through engagement with DPOs, for example. What are the barriers? Why do we have this large employment gap that does not exist in other countries? Are there ways we can facilitate people to get back to work, to stay in work or to take up work if they are able and want to do so?

Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. I am also a member of the social protection committee, so will be focusing on work. Disability is a broad subject. Dr. Cousins spoke about somebody with a short-term illness that can progress into being a long-term disability. There are people born with congenital conditions and people who acquire them. People might not realise that 80% of all disabilities are acquired after the age of 18. Many people have participated in work. However, I am interested in Dr. Cousins indicating how we can engage. Has he carried out any studies? There is a gap, namely the first five months where we do not intervene. When we look at it, the figure of 150,000 has risen to 230,000. Are we not engaging? Are we letting things slide? By our not supporting people, we are keeping the purse strings tightened in the context of money that should be reinvested elsewhere.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

The short answer is that we are not engaging sufficiently. We are doing very little in terms of engaging with people in that critical period. There are lots of examples in other European countries as to what can be done. I do not have time to go into the details. There are many experiences from other European countries that could help stop people moving to long-term disability benefit. There is also the issue of people who have acquired early disabilities transferring from domiciliary care allowance to disability allowance. Again, that is an area where we are not really engaging with people to see what capacity they have, what type of work they might be able to do and how we could support them. We really need to engage much more.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

A really important aspect of this is looking at how we support people to stay in employment. At the moment, we have a situation whereby people are either employed or on disability or illness benefit. It does not feel like there is much middle ground. It is so difficult to get disability allowance. There was an article yesterday about the number of rejections of disability allowance, which is phenomenal. In many other countries in Europe, it is possible to work part time and have more flexible working arrangements. We need to look at how we support people to stay in employment and to work in more accessible ways in order that they do not need to fully transition to disability allowance. The key point is that in many European countries, it is possible to live well working three or four days per week. That is just not possible in Ireland, which is a terrible problem and a shame.

Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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This question is for whoever can answer it. What is the role of assistive technology in helping people back into the workforce? I saw an article this week about such technology, developed by Alan Craughwell's company, AssistiV Ireland, that will help 1,000 people get back into the workforce in jobs in what I will term as a "pub situation" because I do not want to refer to the brand involved. Maybe Dr. Doorley can give an idea of the role played by assistive technology. If anybody else wants to comment on it, I would love to hear what they have to say.

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I am not sure I can comment on it directly. I do not know an awful lot about it.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

Assistive technology is important. A huge barrier to assistive technology in the workplace is accessing these supports. There are schemes in place. Often, however, if a person transitions from one workplace to another, their supports do not transfer with them and they have to reapply. A huge aspect in the context of work and disabled people is the barrier to moving up the career ladder and earning more money. Another major challenge is moving supports from one entity to another.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Before I bring in the next speaker, any members who have come in and who want to contribute should indicate. I will put them on the list. For those who have already contributed, we will have a second round two after the break. If they want to contribute, I will add their names to the list as well.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir. It is great to have all of the witnesses here and to be finally dealing with these issues. If we are talking about having disabled people involved in every aspect of life - and Dr. Hassett put it well - then we need to talk about everything from employment to education. However, there is also a need to discuss engaging in society. Furthermore, it is about housing and all of the absolute necessities.

Let us talk about the schemes that allow or facilitate, or are meant to facilitate, people to be at work. Let us deal with those alone. The working access scheme is meant to be about providing reasonable accommodations and should also be about providing the correct assistive technology. What I have heard from people who have spoken to me is that the scheme is not fit for purpose. If you talk to officials off the record, you will be told it is not fit for purpose. The wage subsidy scheme was referred to, as were the difficulties of engaging with the system. Particularly in the context of those who employ more than one person, we have had a huge number of complaints because they thought the €1.20 increase would be across the board. In some instances, that did not turn out to be the case. There were cases where it was a 55-cent increase. We accept that there have been increases to the cost of doing business, but there was also an acceptance that if you had a greater number of disabled people employed, then you may have greater overheads. If we are being real about this, we need schemes that work.

I will get into the figures. The number of WSS employers in 2019 was 1,979. In 2024, it was 1,504. The number of WSS employees in 2019 was 2,881. In 2024, it was 2,466. The figures are going in the wrong direction. All of this needs to be reviewed. It is without doubt that a cost-of-disability payment is an obviously necessary thing when it comes to increased costs. Can we get an answer about the schemes that are not working and what needs to be done in respect of them?

I am also interested in the idea of workability. At times, we have good projects. The problem is, however, that there is a pilot scheme that works well in one place and that a third level institution is doing good work in another. We need the State, whether it is in the form of Intreo or some other entity, to step in.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

There needs to be a more comprehensive approach, as the Deputy said. At present, the problem is that we have small schemes that are dealing with 1,000 people. This obviously does not address the number of disabled people out there or the number of employers who could be employing disabled people.

There needs to be a more comprehensive approach, which, I hope, might come from the strategy.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for their presentations. I have a few questions which might be a bit off the radar. We all deal with primary medical certificates for people with disabilities. The rules are far too restrictive. Have any of the witnesses made a case to the Minister for Finance to make them less restrictive? People who have disabilities are entitled to this facility. The motorised transport grant has been under review for about 15 years. That makes no sense.

Governments take pride in the percentage of those with disabilities who get public jobs. Are the various Departments adhering to what is laid down in this regard? I will give the example of someone who had a tragic accident and became disabled but is now doing extremely well. He applied successfully for a job in a particular Department. However, when he presented himself, he found that the conditions were not adequate. It took months, involving intervention by me and others, to have that done. That should be done immediately if adaptations are needed for a person like the man in question.

In all housing schemes, provision should be made for people with disabilities. The HSE and the voluntary housing organisations are trying to ensure that there are blocks that will accommodate such individuals. However, if that is not the case, one or two houses should be left alone until near completion and when the developer knows the tenants and can establish the adaptations required, they can be done. There are schemes across the country, particularly in Gaeltacht areas, where people are being told that they have to be able to speak Irish. However, disabled people are entitled to this. We see that every day at our clinics and through our contacts. We should ensure that the local authorities - it could come down from Government - make a percentage of houses available for people with such requirements.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

The motorised transport grant is the grant I could not remember earlier. Physical Impairment Ireland is working extensively on this. I encourage committee members to get in contact with it.

In terms of primary medical certificates, we have really pushed for a more holistic understanding of disability. The UNCRPD has a definition of "disability" in Article 1. When we break disability down into individual conditions, we will always miss something. We will always miss the real lived experience and what it is to be disabled. We would encourage a move away from systems that list disabilities to better systems that look at the person holistically.

I make one quick point about public jobs. The strategy contains a commitment for 6% of people in jobs in the Civil Service to be individuals with disabilities. However, as that was already met in 2023, I am a bit confused as to why that is a specific target. It shows a lack of ambition on the part of the Government. If 22% of people are disabled, why is our target for only 6% of people in the public sector to be those who are disabled? That is not necessarily looking at 6% at every level, which is what we would like to see. We would like to see that at all levels we have an aspiration for a higher number of disabled people to be in employment. The public sector should be leading the charge and leading by example on this.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. I thank the two committees for hosting this timely and important joint meeting. I will keep my questions brief because I want to allow as much time as possible for the responses. I want to pick up on something Dr. Hassett said about a lack of ambition and aspiration. That speaks volumes to the approach of successive Governments to this issue.

My questions relate to the cost of navigating this world for people with disabilities, as has been referred to already, particularly people with disabilities who happen to live in rural areas. I am a rural dweller and am Sinn Féin spokesperson on rural affairs. I see this across the board for young people, older people and workers. I am sure the same is true for people with disabilities. What issues need to be considered by these committees and by the Government to address the issues of people with disabilities living in rural areas?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

The Deputy makes a good point that many of the issues faced by people in rural areas, whether they have disabilities or not, are the same. They relate to transport, accessibility, getting to work and stuff like that. Obviously, the cost of meeting those needs for people with disabilities is higher. We were not able to estimate a breakdown of the cost of disability as between rural and urban areas, so I cannot comment on that. It makes sense that those costs would be higher in rural areas. Efforts to improve infrastructure and transport links in the rural areas should take into account that those are also needed for people with disabilities. This should come into the conversation at every point.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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An issue that impacts all people living in rural areas, particularly younger people, is the issue of housing which has been referenced here already. It strikes me that people who grew up in a rural area, whether they have a disability or not, have limited opportunities to find a home or build a home in their area. Is this something that is particularly pronounced in the witnesses' experience of dealing with people with disabilities who might have grown up in rural communities and who might like to live there close to their support networks and close to the home where they grew up, but they find a lack of housing suitable to their needs and a lack of options, meaning they are forced into more urban areas?

Dr. Amy Hassett:

There are two aspects to this. First, the access to support, access to personal assistants, access to services all of which are easier in an urban environment than in a rural environment. Second, if somebody wants to live in a rural environment and wants to build a house, for example, it is very difficult to get support. People can apply for housing adaptation grants but they only pay pack back what was spent on making the house accessible. Therefore, people still need that capital upfront. The problem that creates is that if someone wants to build a house in a rural environment, they have to have both the money to pay for that and the money to pay for those adaptations and can then claim them back. That is creating a massive issue in those areas.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Ardagh. After her contribution, we will break for five minutes. I am conscious that our witnesses have been answering questions for the past hour. We will allow a break for five minutes in order that people can refresh themselves. After Deputy Ardagh, there will be a number of speakers. We will get through them all.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. I thank Dr. Hassett for joining us remotely. In a world of child disabilities, I am consumed by children born with disabilities. Senator Anne Rabbitte, the former Minister of State with responsibility for disability, has been schooling me to the effect that 80% of people living with disabilities acquired them after they turned 18.

On education, there is a great school, Scoil Eoin in Crumlin, for those with mild and moderate disabilities. Some 95% of children graduating from that school go out to work, which is fantastic compared with 30% of children with mild and moderate disabilities in the national population who go on to work. Scoil Eoin is obviously doing something right. I disagree with the Department of education, which wants to redesignate it as a school for those with profound disabilities and mild disabilities. The school is doing something right and should be supported.

In relation to the CDNTs and services, there has been pushback and talk about moving therapies from CDNTs to schools for children who are attending school. Many people speak negatively about CDNTs. Will the witnesses outline their experience of the services they, as adults, are getting from their CDNT or not?

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Does anybody want to comment on that?

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It might be a case of "no comment".

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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It is probably outside the remit of our discussion. Does Dr. Hassett wish to comment?

Dr. Amy Hassett:

It is absolutely the case that there are massive issues regarding supports for disabled children. There are two aspects to this. One of the things that has come up in ESRI research in the past is that the cost of having a disabled child is shared by the entire family. When there is not access to proper supports for children, the families have to pay for them privately. That creates two problems. First, it means those who have access to financial resources get those supports, while those who do not have resources do not access the supports. The second aspect is that the parents of disabled children are significantly more likely to be disabled themselves. That creates a situation where two levels of costs are being shared across the family.

The issue of disabled parents and the supports they need is something we are working on. Accessing supports for disabled children is incredibly difficult in Ireland, with massive waiting lists of up to a decade, which is absolutely obscene. The problem at the adult level is that, very often, those supports fall off. One of the issues we talk about a lot within the disability community is those transitions into adulthood and the lack of support for them. The supports that are there for children just are not there at the adult level. We need a whole-life-cycle perspective on disability.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Reference was made to the cliff edge and that also applies to housing. We often see constituents who get housing only when their elderly parents pass away. It is really unfair. That seems to be the only show in town for accessing housing, which should not be the way. It means parents are living with anxiety in their final years and the person does not know what will happen and has no continuity of housing. Living in the community is a priority, as we have discussed, but a lot of placements are not in the community. When people are faced with these cliff-edge scenarios, they are taken out of their communities and put in residential settings that are not appropriate for them. We have touched on this already but I would be interested to hear any of the witnesses comment further.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

Where there are older parents looking after children at home, some of whom may have a day place, the sooner they are moved out of home the better, before elderly parents become worried about it. Society needs to look at enabling individuals in that situation to stand on their own two feet in terms of living independently or with a chosen person. I could not go back to my mother, who is in her golden years, and ask to move in with her. I am lucky to have my own house and be able to come and go as I wish. The earlier that can be done for people with disabilities, the better. However, it takes time and people sometimes do not like to let go.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is a great message.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We will suspend briefly and return refreshed.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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We will continue with our list of speakers and questions for the committee.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their opening statements and answers. With reference to the gaps in current employment supports for people with disabilities and disability assessments, will the witnesses highlight the top two or three areas that are not working?

Dr. Mel Cousins:

In terms of a disability assessment, I led a study for the National Disability Authority, NDA, some years ago which examined disability assessment in a range of European countries. Different approaches can be taken. Fundamentally, it is an extremely difficult thing to do, even in terms of saying somebody is incapable or capable of work. It is very subjective. As I said, different countries take different approaches. Rather than having a doctor carry out an assessment, some countries have an independent person who does that work. Some put more emphasis on medical approaches. Some are more social. It is extremely difficult to get it right.

In terms of the current employment supports, a range of measures is in place, as Deputy Ó Murchú mentioned. We need to try to develop a more coherent overall approach. Rather than having a small scheme that helps a small number of people, we should have a more strategic approach to helping people to take up and stay in employment.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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The research and much of what has been said today has shown that there are extra hidden costs around disability. Does the State do enough? Could it do extra things to make life sustainable for people with a disability and improve their quality of life? I ask the witnesses to highlight some areas that need to be addressed.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

It depends on where you live. Those living in a rural area need more money to live than those living in an urban area because of a lack of transport, in particular if they cannot drive or choose not to drive. People require a good taxi or rural bus service that can go from village to village or town to town. If you do not have that and cannot rely on parents and siblings because they are working or are not in the country, you have to rely on public transport or taxi services, if available, in a community. Supports like that are important. We need to encourage the development of services in rural towns and villages so that people can travel from place to place, especially if people have free travel or something else they can use on a regular basis.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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A couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion on people with disabilities being able to access transport. Mr. McGrath is in rural Clare, which I know because we were chatting earlier. It is difficult to get a disability taxi in urban areas. I can only imagine what it is like in rural Ireland. Do people have to wait long or book it in advance?

Mr. Joe McGrath:

It depends. If a taxi service I use has one, I do not have to book in advance, but if I needed a wheelchair accessible taxi I would have to book it in advance and have to know whether one can come to my house. It all depends on where you live.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. McGrath.

Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I welcome back those who were here a few weeks ago. I love how Mr. McGrath referred to his mother as being in her golden years. It is a lovely way to explain things. I thought about the parents who came to my office this week who are also facing into their golden years and are looking for an inclusive and adequate living situation for their child. Mr. McGrath mentioned he is lucky enough to have his own home. We have a long way to go until it is not a case of being lucky to have one's own home, but rather a right that is realised for everybody.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

It is a right. If I can go to work, I can contribute to society.

I am learning to be independent so that, should any of my brothers or sisters or my mother pass away, I would have community supports around me. I am ensuring that in the community where I live, I have natural supports around me.

Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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We need to flip it around and say that society is now lucky that Mr. McGrath has his own home. Society will get the benefit of that now. That is the lens through which we need to view it. We have a whole-of-government approach to disability. We were speaking a few weeks ago about the need for a one-door policy on the ground. We are trying to get as many people with disabilities as possible out of congregated settings and out of the family home. We have local authorities working together with housing authorities, the Department of Social Protection and the HSE. Would the witnesses like to comment on levels of inter-agency collaboration between different sectors? This week I am trying to advocate for a gentleman to get an accessible, inclusive, choice-based and supportive house. He is on a housing list but that is irrelevant if he does not have personal assistant support, so his local authority needs to collaborate with the community living person, who also needs to go back to his social protection officer because his disability allowance is under threat. Do any of the witnesses want to comment on how far away from that one-door policy or from inter-agency collaboration we are currently?

Dr. Amy Hassett:

The Deputy raises the really important point that there is very little collaboration and it often ends up being the disabled person who is the conduit for information. On the one hand, we do not want to take the disabled person out of that because it is very important that he or she remains centred and has autonomy and control over what is happening. Situations where agencies talk together without talking to the disabled person are also very bad. It is about looking at how we can support people more holistically. We need to take a more holistic approach to providing supports but we are quite a distance away from that.

In terms of how we get there, that is quite difficult. A real challenge here is different agencies understanding their respective remits and who has responsibility. One classic example, which we raised at a previous meeting, relates to the many disabled people who are on work placement as part of a college degree. Often this is in areas like social care, which tend to be dominated by women, so there is a dual impact. One of the things we are seeing in those situations is that the college and the place where they are doing the placement, which is often a hospital, cannot decide who has responsibility to provide accommodations. There is no clarity and therefore people are falling through the gaps. We need clarity over who has responsibility for what and we need to work in a holistic fashion to ensure that disabled people have the supports they need.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome all of the witnesses to the meeting. I apologise for being late but I have read the opening statements. A lot of my questions have already been answered but I would ask the witnesses to expand on one issue. As we all know, the cost of living is higher for someone who has a disability and the ESRI has recommended a cost-of-disability payment. Do the witnesses have suggestions as to how this could be structured so that those who need it most will get it and it will not be abused? Is there a fear that it could get mixed up with other payments, reduce other payments or prevent people from getting them? How would the witnesses suggest that could be worked out?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

There is a number of ways to think about designing a cost-of-disability payment. The model that has been talked about most frequently to date is a once-a-year payment to people who are in receipt of disability allowance. That would be something similar to the one-off payments we had during the cost-of-living crisis but would be a temporary feature of the social welfare system. There would be a payment made either once a year or spread out over weeks or months to acknowledge the fact that households living with a disability, whether in work or not, have higher costs. That could be structured as something that is tagged on to social welfare and in that way we would only really be targeting people who are not at work or working very little. Administratively, it might be difficult to pay it out to all people with a disability without reference to social welfare payments. That would be a challenge. I am sure it is something that could be done but it might involve more work on behalf of the Department. Those are the models that are in mind.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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Everything else was covered.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Does Dr. Hassett want to comment?

Dr. Amy Hassett:

Just to follow on from that, tagging it to social welfare is one approach. However, that means we risk losing people who are not in receipt of social welfare payments. The answer to that question is that we need to sit down and work it out. It requires disabled people, other experts and representatives of the Departments of Social Protection and Children, Disability and Equality sitting down and working out how we can best do this. One of the issues I like to point to when we talk about social protection and disabled people is that very often we are worried about people abusing systems. This is something that has come up quite a bit in the UK system, with fears around people getting supports when they are not disabled. However, as a disabled person myself and having talked to members of the disabled community, I am significantly more concerned about people not getting supports when they are entitled to them and when they absolutely need them. We need to have very hard conversations with ourselves about what we consider to be acceptable risk and acceptable parameters for these systems. For me, it is a much more egregious error when somebody who needs support does not get it than when somebody who does not need support gets it. That is something that is being spoken about in the context of the UK system and we need to make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes that were made across the water. We nearly did so in our Green Paper and its suggested reforms of the social welfare code in relation to the disability allowance. We need to look at the strengths of that system but also have a really hard look at ourselves in terms of what we want the model to be, what we want it to mean for disabled people and what risks we are willing to take with that. For me, it is about protecting disabled people and if that brings a little bit of risk, I am comfortable with that so long as members of my community have a safe place to live and have access to the supports they need.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I must say that Dr. Hassett, Ms Forde and Mr. McGrath are great ambassadors and I thank them for being with us today. It is nice to have this robust engagement. We need to continue to have a robust debate in order to progress the conversation and make progress on much-needed supports. Dr. Hassett referenced issues in relation to adapting a house or property. Access to a house is one issue but another critical or essential issue is access to employment opportunities. I am familiar with the WorkAbility programme in Galway. The Galway Rural Development team had the WorkAbility programme in place and was able to support people in employment. It is a simple enough model. If somebody, like our witnesses today, has a preference for employment then everything and anything that Departments can do should be done. Those who wish to progress and support themselves in life should be supported to the hilt. Regrettably for a lot of people, their disability is permanent. It is going to be with them always and they need to forward plan for that disability. A house is one issue and employment is another. Employers also need to be supported. There is a great fear among some employers that it might be complex or difficult or that a lot of issues might present if they take on somebody who is disabled.

That fear needs to be gotten rid of by offering supports to the employer. I am not referring to counselling supports, because “counselling” is the wrong word, but to supports to encourage employers to seek to employ people with the concerns in question. There is a massive amount of work to be done in this regard. It is about supporting employers and encouraging them to create or provide opportunities. Within the workplace, it is about supporting people financially, if necessary. If people need to adapt their office or place of employment, consideration should be given to this. It would be wrong for us to feel someone with a disability needs to beg for supports. The money should follow the case and it should not be a matter of having to plead and prove you have a disability. I can understand how some might like to exploit the British model, which Dr. Hassett referred to, but this should be easy to regulate. It should not complicate easy access to what we are talking about. That is more of a comment than a question. If the witnesses have one priority for better supports, what is it?

Mr. Joe McGrath:

If I want to do something and am entitled to a disability allowance once I am diagnosed at birth or later, the things I need should follow me. If we had SNAs when going to school in the 1970s and 1980s, we would not have gone through the special needs school system. I would have been more included in my community than has been the case. Provision needs to be made from the age at which a person is diagnosed with a disability, including in the teenage years and once they leave the education system and start working, if they wish to do so. We also need to keep in mind that people who need more supports, such as those with wheelchairs or those who are not working, need another payment to allow them to be part of their local community if they want to live in it or wherever they grew up.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. McGrath. I appreciate that.

We will now proceed to the second round of questions. Six members have indicated a wish to contribute, so I ask them to be brief. I call Senator Tom Clonan.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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On the mix of qualitative and quantitative research, when I did my research on women in the Defence Forces I found the presence of discriminatory policies and the absence of the equal status and employment equality Acts accelerated the risk of abuse. It was part of the cause of widespread sexual violence, up to and including rape. In Dr. Doorley’s research and comprehensive study, does she find a causal link between the absence of rights-based legislation for disabled citizens in Ireland and the resistance to that legislation? Does this have a causal effect resulting in suboptimal outcomes for disabled citizens in respect of all the measures we have been talking about?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I am not aware of any causal evidence, but that does not mean the phenomenon does not exist or that there is no link. I do not believe there is any causal research, for Ireland, at least, on that topic.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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Do you have a hunch about it?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

To extrapolate from other areas of research on the introduction of rights or legislation, ingraining something in a constitution or making it law leads to better outcomes for whatever group is marginalised. I am sure there is a link but I do not know the extent of it in Ireland. I am not sure if there is any causal evidence at the moment. It may be a good area for future research.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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Has Dr. Cousins a view on it?

Dr. Mel Cousins:

Not a very strong one. Disability is one of the issues addressed in the Equal Status Act, for example. There is disability legislation, but the disability policy, particularly in the area of social protection, is one that has not advanced in recent years. One could probably say “decades”. It is more a political issue than a legal one, but that is a purely personal view.

Tom Clonan (Independent)
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On the question of accessible housing, my son is one of those people at risk of being involuntarily detained in a nursing home. There are between 1,500 and 2,000 younger adults inappropriately warehoused in nursing homes in Leinster. They are not part of the statistics. They are statistically invisible because they are not listed as homeless. One of my son's deepest, darkest fears is that he will end up in the same nursing home as me. It is a challenge for us.

Future research should focus on the qualitative, lived experience. I am sure it has already been done. In our lived experience, things have certainly deteriorated. I am referring to every aspect of the experience, particularly since the crash and the imposition of austerity measures. One of the principal things we have to do is put in place the legislation that is in other jurisdictions.

I thank the delegates. I also thank the Chair for his patience, which I appreciate.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Hassett has a comment on Senator Clonan’s remarks.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

I cannot speak for all those doing the kind of research asked about but one of the areas that Disabled Women Ireland is focusing on most is disabled women. We find that in both the new national strategy for disabled people and the new national strategy for women and girls, disabled women are entirely absent. There are no specific measures that specifically target the kinds of issues raised by disabled women. A huge part of what underpins this is a lack of data on what is happening on the ground for disabled woman. Very often there are data that are not disaggregated based on gender or any other characteristic. This makes it difficult for us to get the perspective of disabled women into policy and legislation, and that impacts outcomes. Where we have evidence of outcomes, we see the outcomes for disabled women are worse than those for disabled men across a wide range of areas, particularly around gender-based violence. This is why the latter came to mind. However, we do not actually know the magnitude of the issues and we are absent from the conversations on how to fix the problem. How the data and research element relate to policy is incredibly important.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Hassett. The next speaker is Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I want to follow up on some of the issues I referred to earlier. The cost-of-disability payment needs to be dealt with. It goes without saying that we need to make sure, particularly when talking about employment, that we deal with the supports and that they be holistic. We had a recent meeting at which we noted a huge fear people have is that if they take on work, they will lose benefits. Even if they lose the work at a later stage, there is sometimes a difficulty in re-accessing the relevant benefits, including payments and medical cards. The fear is prevalent because it is a huge issue. Could any of the delegates comment on it?

Dr. Mel Cousins:

Obviously, this is an issue. Ireland and other countries have measures so people can go back to work for a certain period. I am not sure how well the measures work. The cost of disability payment is one of the issues the Deputy mentioned. It is important that meeting the cost of disability applies both to people in work and to people out of work.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Everyone faces the cost. It is right-----

Dr. Mel Cousins:

Exactly. Otherwise, you are going to create another barrier.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

If we had universal healthcare, it would not make any difference and a person would not have to retain their medical card. The more universal services or payments we can provide, the better.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is it. I do not see a sufficient amount of movement in that direction, so we are going to have to deal with this.

Dr. Karina Doorley:

At the moment, people can keep the disability allowance for a certain amount of time if they work a certain number of hours. There will be ways to increase the tapering on that. The working family payment is a good example of a benefit in Ireland where people get to work up to full time and the amount they get from the working family payment is a percentage of the difference between their earnings and the income limit. Something like that could be a good model for a disability allowance that allows people to work more and retain it.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The evidence is there. It is a matter of reforming this so that it works for people. I also have a question in relation to housing. Adaptation grants do not cut the mustard when it comes to some of the works that need to be done to facilitate people to live in their homes. I have even dealt with a couple of issues where we managed to get added moneys from the HSE and whatever, but that was after a number of years. None of this is good enough. In fairness, Senator Clonan spoke about the issue of people ending up in nursing homes who should not be there. I will also say that an awful lot of residential placements are done absolutely reactively. There is no plan in place and the State probably ends up paying more. I imagine it is an issue that has come across the table for Dr. Hassett and many others. Perhaps she, or anyone else for that matter, wishes to comment on it.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

It is. For people who are in residential services, they need more money than people like me who are not using the residential service because they will need someone to look after their needs 24 hours per day. It depends on the severity of their disability. Obviously, a person who needs long-term care should be looked after. If they are non-verbal, they need to be looked after. I know a lot of people around where I live. One or two of them are in a residential service and they are being provided with the best service they can get, but it needs to be looked at------

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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To suit the person.

Mr. Joe McGrath:

------so that those young people in nursing homes, who do not need to be there, can free up beds for the older people who need to go into nursing homes.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. McGrath. I call Senator Harmon.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Does Dr. Hassett wish to come in?

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I do not think so. Mr. McGrath said it all.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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It is great to be here as part of this joint meeting between the two committees. I am a member of the disability matters committee. I am a Senator with the Labour Party. I apologise for coming in and out during the meeting; I was attending different commitments. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I am conscious that a lot of topics have been covered so I do not want to get into repeating others’ questions. Obviously, there are a number of structural and societal inequality issues that we need to challenge as a whole. I know many of these have been mentioned today, such as the fact that we have the worst employment rates in Europe, as well as issues with regard to housing, adaptation issues, accessible transport and, obviously, the financial constraints. The fact that over 27% of disabled people are at risk of poverty is a really stark statistic to hear. In terms of the “nothing about us without us” slogan - I know this has been touched on already as part of the meeting - are there any key things that the witnesses would like to see us work on as public representatives immediately in that regard? Are there things they did not get a chance to say earlier in the meeting that they wish to bring in?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

The cost of disability is about €500 per week. The solution is not to increase the disability allowance to that amount, however; it has to be multifaceted. We have to look at improving the employment rates of people with disabilities, reducing their barriers to work and facilitating them to enter and stay in the labour market. We have to consider services and provide more in-kind services, free equipment or whatever it is that is needed, such as free healthcare, housing or transportation so that those costs are not a burden on the person and they can use their income from employment or the disability allowance to meet their everyday needs. Finally, for those who cannot work, we need to think about the disability allowance and the cost of disability payment. The cost of disability payment should be separate. Dr. Cousins is right that it should be a payment that is not just targeted at people who are in receipt of social protection because it creates this extra barrier to work, which is exactly what we are trying to break down.

Dr. Mel Cousins:

I agree with what has been said. We need to have a policy. Obviously, we are looking primarily at the social protection issues but we must also look at early intervention to keep people in work, policies to support people in work and addressing the cost of disability in a range of ways, partially through services. Dr. Hassett is right that we need to have a group of some sort that involves all the different stakeholders, including, primarily, people with disabilities to design what that might look like.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

Both speakers have raised my main point, that is, the need to find ways to break down the cost of disability so that disabled people are not paying out of pocket for things they need and should not have to pay for. One of the things I was thinking about is the process and how we move forward. It was asked how we go about doing this. DPO involvement is an important thing. We are here as the DPO Network, which is a coalition of five organisations. There are two important things that DPOs bring to the table. The first is the lived experienced, which I, Mr. McGrath and Ms Forde have spoken about today. The second is that we can bring an analytical perspective to things. We have quite a lot of experience of looking at policy, legislation and systems and working out how they change. The DPO Network is one such organisation but there are many other DPOs across the country. There are DPOs that operate at a local level, which is something that is becoming more popular and absolutely fantastic to see. There are those of us who are working on the national level and others who represent specific communities. The DPO Network can happily help and facilitate the committee to contact more DPOs. Bringing the DPOs with their analytical perspective to the table through conversations like this is an important part. We are happy to provide support and help the committee contact other folk like us.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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I thank the Comhchathaoirleach for letting me in again. Dr. Hassett said something a while ago that I wish to pick up on again. She mentioned that there is a fear around abuse of the welfare system and questioned what an acceptable risk is. She found that it would be more egregious if a person with a disability were prevented from accessing supports. This question is directed to Dr. Doorley. Aontú received a reply to a parliamentary question last week on the number of disability allowance refusals and the number of appeals that were subsequently successful. There were between 3,000 and 5,000 refusals per year that were successful on appeal. We see that this is happening. The issue then for people who do not appeal – this is where I have a huge concern – is that those people are left out of the system. Does Dr. Doorley have any comments on that? How does she feel about that?

Dr. Karina Doorley:

The Senator raises an important point. The purpose of social protection is to give supports and safety nets to those who need them. If the people who need them are not actually taking them up, then it is failing. International and national literature show that the more complicated an application process is for a particular payment, the lower the take-up rate will be. People do not apply for it because they either do not know about it or how to apply for it or they do not think they are going to be successful in getting it. There is some recent evidence from our colleagues in UCD that shows that more vulnerable people are unlikely to take up things they are eligible for because the administrative burden is just too high.

I would be concerned about that. If there is to be reform of any of the payments targeted at people with disabilities or if there is to be a cost of disability payment, it is really important that the administrative process is simple and easy to navigate to ensure everyone who needs it is actually taking it up. The potential abuse of payments is a completely separate matter but the process needs to allow people who need it to be able to take it up, to know about it and think they will be successful.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Hassett has a point to make on that as well.

Dr. Amy Hassett:

I am one of those people. I was turned down for disability allowance when I first applied about 14 years ago. There are a few of elements as to why this is the case. First, the system needs to be looked at in terms of whether it is accurately capturing somebody's disability. For example, when I applied 14 years ago, there was no part on the form that asked whether I could use a wheelchair. There was a question about whether I could walk. While I can walk, I also use a wheelchair so that is why I was turned down. We need to look at how we work with disabled people to build the system so it will better capture the lived experience of being disabled.

The second thing we need to look at is how those applications are assessed, who is assessing them and how that is done. That is a separate conversation, probably a much more detailed one, specifically. Third, the system itself is not very accessible. In the case of appeals, one of the big challenges is that you have to supply all of your documentation within three weeks. That is an example of one of the barriers. The problem is it can take more than three weeks to get the supporting documentation and physically get it into the post to get it to the office, because all of this operates by post. Very little can be done by email, which creates more time barriers. In my case, when I had to go through the assessment and the appeal process, it took ten days for the letter to reach me and then I only had 11 days to get my supporting material back. We need to look at the accessibility of the system. It is also not designed with disabled people in mind. The language is very formal and full of legalese. I had to get support from multiple family members just to understand what the letters were saying to me, so that is creating a huge barrier.

The fourth aspect, which is really important, is the administrative burden. It is incredibly high. We know there are certain groups of disabled people, particularly those who are neurodivergent, who particularly struggle with filling out forms and these sorts of administrative processes. It is having a disproportionate impact on some communities. I forgot to mention a really important thing earlier, particularly if we are talking about 3,500 people who are being denied a disability allowance and then getting it on appeal. We need to remember that over in the UK, when they looked for abuse within their social welfare system they found it was in less than 1% of cases. We are seeing much higher rates of people being refused and later being granted on appeal here in Ireland. On the balance of power or the balance of acceptability, we have a bit of wiggle room there before we need to worry at all. That is just looking at the numbers and cold, hard facts.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Hassett and the Senator. As Dr. Hassett has to leave at 11.45 a.m. due to work commitments I will take this opportunity, as we are nearing that time, to thank her for her co-operation and participation this morning's meeting. It is very much appreciated by everyone.

We have finished our questions and answers so I will now call on my colleague, the Cathaoirleach of the Committee on Disability Matters, Deputy Quinlivan, to close the meeting.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair and thank everyone for attending what I thought was a very insightful and interesting discussion. Mr. Joe McGrath made a very interesting comment and what he said was that it is clear all the committees have to work together going forward. I chair the Committee on Disability Matters and we stretch that committee as best we can to align ourselves with the UNCRPD, where we can have stuff in. For instance, we will have another joint committee meeting before Christmas with the Committee on Transport to discuss some of the issues that were raised here this morning.

It is clear from the discussion this morning that disabled people want to work but need to be supported to do so. I was struck by some of the comments that were made. Dr. Doorley of the ESRI stated in her contribution that "Disabled people thus face a double penalty in the sense that they have lower average incomes but face higher average expenditures." She also said, among other things, that "Income poverty could also be reduced by directly increasing targeted welfare payments or introducing a cost of disability payment, as recommended by the commission on the status of people with disabilities."

The DPO Network asked, among other things:

What does an adequate standard of living mean in practice? It encompasses safe, accessible housing; nutritious food; quality healthcare and rehabilitation services; education and vocational training; meaningful employment opportunities; and access to community and cultural life..

Dr. Mel Cousins, as part of his contribution stated there is a need, initially, to develop a consensus that significant reform is needed, both in relation to income supports and the costs of disability.

I thank everyone for their contributions. My final comment is to note the discussion and evidence suggests that supporting work without losing essential supports, recognising the fluctuating capacity of individuals and providing tailored supports for employment and community inclusion should be significant aspects of the Government's consideration of the review of disability payments. Once again, I thank everyone coming in and for agreeing to have a joint committee meeting on this issue.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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Thanks very much Chair.

Finally, on my own behalf I have one question for Dr. Cousins and Dr. Doorley. In terms of best in class, or internationally, who should we be following in this regard? Do they have any examples of how we can proceed to the next stage?

Dr. Mel Cousins:

In terms of keeping people in work and supporting them getting back to work, the Netherlands and some of the Scandinavian countries are probably the best examples from that perspective. In terms of the cost of disability, as I said there are different models. The UK has a fairly extensive personal independence payment but then the Australian approach, which is quite different, is also very effective. The committee would need to look at different models to see what suits here.

Dr. Karina Doorley:

I have nothing really to add to that. Dr. Cousins has covered it.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank all of our witnesses today, especially from the DPO Network, namely, Ms Mairead Forde, Mr. Joe McGrath, and Dr. Amy Hassett. I thank them for being part of today's meeting. I know it is a nervous time for them all to attend and it was their first time attending a committee meeting so it was great to have them here.

Ms Mairead Forde:

Yes.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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I thank them sincerely for their contributions. I also thank Professor Doorley, Dr. Agathe Simon and Dr. Cousins for their contributions today and for providing those briefing materials in advance, which assisted the committee members in their deliberations. The insights and expertise provided today are critical in terms of consulting those who have first-hand knowledge but also in shaping and trying to understand what course of policy development we should now take. We will take those learnings on board and they will be key in our minds and the efforts of both committees to further the goal of implementing the cost of disability support measure that truly helps to alleviate the hardship and initial costs that arise from having a disability. We thank all of the witnesses for their expertise and knowledge today and I thank all members of both committees - the Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development and the Committee on Disability Matters for their attendance.