Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and I also welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject. Disability is something we should discuss on an ongoing basis and we should continually monitor the resources and supports provided by the Government to individuals, agencies and voluntary organisations that are working with people with disabilities. In addition, we should take note of our attitudes to people with disabilities. A recent report from the National Disability Authority contains surveys that show a hardening of attitudes towards people with disabilities, which is of major concern. It is similar to the phenomenon of an immediate deterioration in attitudes towards foreign people when there is a downturn in the broader economy. More people are saying they would prefer that children with autism or Asperger's syndrome were not educated in mainstream schools. This is an undercurrent that we need to deal with in a vocal way. This type of attitude is insidious and seeps into people's consciousness, creating dangerous precedents.

There is a number of ways of addressing this, including moral debate. We must encourage society to be outward-looking and supportive of people with disabilities, but there must also be supports from the Government. When supports for people with disabilities are diminished, people begin to feel, for example, that their children are not receiving their educational rights or entitlements. It is an unfortunate argument, but one that is made. Education providers will tell one that parents complain their children are not receiving the full educational opportunities to which they are entitled for various reasons. That must be addressed at Government level and also at societal level. It is for that reason that debates such as the one we are having are important. The National Disability Authority and other organisations are working on a continual basis not only to promote the rights and entitlements of people with disabilities but also to ensure their views are heard in the broader community so people understand the challenges faced by those with disabilities and embrace this as an opportunity to improve society.

I welcome the Minister's appointment, as I have said publicly. I do not wish to praise her too often but I know she is genuinely committed to this issue and has long been a campaigning advocate for people with disabilities. However, we must ensure that we bring the broader community with us and not have a "them and us" situation. We have that in too many areas such as, for example, race and, for many years, in the context of creed and nationality on this island. It is not unusual for people to bring a debate down to a simplistic assessment of what is right and wrong or why somebody is less fortunate than others because it is somebody else's fault.

The area of education, in particular, is one we must address. We must be able to support the education providers in the classroom, that is, principals, assistant principals and teachers, as well as the people with disabilities to ensure they have their basic right to an education. We have had this very contentious debate for many years. Court cases have been taken and there have been Supreme Court challenges. Originally, there was a great deal of support in the broader community for education for people with disabilities, but that seems to have regressed. That is clear from the surveys carried out under the national disability strategy. More than 40% of respondents in the latest survey stated that they were opposed to educating children with intellectual disabilities in mainstream settings. That is exceptionally worrying. When one looks at some of the other issues raised in that survey of attitudes one can see it is something we must take on board in a serious and meaningful way.

The other side of the argument is that there are many people with disabilities who are isolated and do not have the necessary supports to participate in society in a meaningful way. The State has obligations, through its funding systems, the agencies, the education system and through supporting voluntary organisations that work with people with disabilities, to ensure that people with disability have the means to live independently as best they can and as much as they wish. How much they wish to do so is the critical issue.

I do not blame the Minister for the budget announcement but it is an issue that must be addressed quickly. I refer to the announcement that disability allowance was to be cut for people under 18 years of age and slashed from €188 to €100 per week for people from 18 to 21 years of age and from €188 to €144 per week for those aged 22 to 24 years old. That was paused by the Taoiseach and the Government announced there would be a review of the decision with regard to the reduction for new applicants for disability allowance. I am not sure what that review consists of, what the decision is or whether it has been made. Not much would be required to carry out the review. However, we know one thing for sure, that it was a mean cut that hurt many people and caused much disquiet and anger in the broader community.

Clearly, many people are now living in limbo. They are waiting for the review to come to a conclusion and for a decision to be made. In the meantime, they are unsure. They are concerned as to whether they will come under the new scheme announced in the budget, which has subsequently been paused, or whether it will only affect new entrants following the Government's decision. I appeal to the Minister to hold the review, to move the pause to stop and just stop the cut. In the context of the overall budgetary provision for social welfare, this is the meanest of them all.

Given that she has responsibility for the disability area, the Minister has an obligation to try to encourage the Government and the Minister for Social Protection to cancel the review and allow the payments to continue as they always did previously. Move the pause button to rewind and return to the way things were before the budget. Let people who have challenges, difficulties and uphill battles on an hourly and daily basis have the financial means to at least participate in a meaningful way in society, as best they can, and to maximise their abilities. That is the basic right of any citizen.

When pressure was brought to bear after the budget, the Taoiseach admitted that the Government does not get everything right. I do not expect the Government to get everything right every day, but when it gets something badly wrong, it should at least put admit it and move on. I have sat on the Government benches. We defended unpopular decisions and decisions we did not particularly like personally, but which were made collectively. The Minister's obligation is to try to argue and advocate for people with disabilities. In the case of the disability allowance, it is a mean cut that should be reversed. The review should be stopped and the situation should be returned to what it was prior to the budget announcement.

Often legislation is the pillar in which the Government and Parliament set out the basic building blocks of rights, entitlements, obligations and support. After that, one hopes society will buy into the general principle in the statute. The key issue is the delivery of services. One can pass the legislation but there must be meaningful support to give it a firm foundation in the delivery of services. Ensuring that people have practical rights and opportunities is critically important.

Special needs assistants and other supports are very important for people with disabilities. There is also the issue of home helps. All the elements are intertwined. They are the elements that give people the support and opportunity to maximise their potential. Any cuts in the number of special needs assistants in the education system, cuts in the number of home helps and cuts that affect carers simply undermine and diminish people's capacity to live in a meaningful way. While we pass and embrace the legislation, that is not worth much unless it is followed up with meaningful support that has an impact on people's lives. Aspirational legislation is very noble but it does not have a daily impact on people. What impacts is the supports that flow from the legislation in terms of provision of finance and personnel and support of organisations, advocacy groups and State agencies that offer assistance and support to people with disabilities.

I welcome the Minister's statement that the mental capacity Bill will be published in this session. That is critically important legislation, for a number of reasons. There have been advances in how people are assessed. For many years, one was assessed once and that was it. However, due to treatment and better assessment procedures, people might have a mental capacity that is much diminished at times but at other times they might have full capacity. When that Bill is eventually passed, and I urge the Minister to bring it forward as quickly as possible, the key issue will again be support through whatever body will be prescribed in the legislation for assessing people.

There will have to be enough support in terms of having a critical number of people who can assess and make decisions on an immediate basis, rather than having people waiting for long periods for assessment as to whether they might have a mental capacity diminution or improvement. That will be fundamentally important. When the legislation is passed the supports should flow very quickly afterwards to ensure it will function in the context of assessing people and ensuring they do not wait for a long time, in effect in limbo, given that they might previously have been described as having a diminished capacity and it could now be much improved because of treatment or simply recovery from mental health issues.

There is another matter that we regularly discuss. In Cork recently the Minister of State launched an initiative to highlight the issue of suicide. We talk about and highlight the issue at times, but our society still has not come to terms with it. Suicide is still seen as a taboo and, in many cases, considered a shame on a family. We must move beyond this and see it as a societal issue that needs to be addressed on an individual basis and collectively. The Minister of State has spoken about suicide in a forceful and purposeful way.

Because of the huge financial pressure and all that flows from the downturn in the economy there is an increased incidence of suicide. We know this, but what have we done to address it? I do not expect the Government to address every personal problem that flows from debt or unemployment. However, we should have a conversation about what it is like to feel so isolated and alone in one's own community that one sees suicide as the only option. When he assumed office, President Higgins spoke about the new republic. He spoke about the need for a conversation among ourselves and an attempt to define what was critically important. He suggested that for too long we might have adjudicated our own success and that of our community and country in purely material terms. While we see material gain as a barometer of success, those who do not have it may feel they have failed. We should have that discussion, but not merely in an abstract way. We must get to the root cause of why people feel so isolated in their own communities or families that they see suicide as the only way out.

I wish the Minister of State well in making sure the disability strategy is continually pursued and monitored. The National Disability Authority will keep us updated in that regard. We must continually monitor the attitude of society to people with disabilities. If we are failing and those attitudes harden, this will become a regressive republic, something I would deeply regret. I urge the Minister of State to promote the disability strategy at every opportunity and to do so in a way that brings everyone in society on the journey to ensure people with disabilities can reach their full potential.

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