Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The removal of the Christmas double payments also heavily impacted on the disabled and their families and carers. All of this meant that Fianna Fáil cut the income of disabled people and their carers by 10% over two budgets. A brass neck indeed. It is no wonder that Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on social protection and Minister in that Government, Deputy O'Dea, was heckled and booed by disability rights campaigners who were protesting outside the Dáil a few weeks ago.

That Fianna Fáil Government also cruelly slashed funding to voluntary organisations working with the disabled as well as front-line services to the disabled across the State. We witnessed savage cuts to the number of special needs assistants, SNAs, resulting in children with disabilities staying outside of mainstream schools. Was it not the Fianna Fáil Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, who told primary school teachers that resource teachers for children with learning disabilities would be withdrawn if they had less than nine children in each of their schools? That was in 2009, when the then Fine Gael education spokesperson, Deputy Brian Hayes, issued a statement calling it an "attack" on children with learning disabilities. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, was the then Labour spokesperson on disability and called for services for children with intellectual disabilities to be protected. It is remarkable how Fine Gael and Labour have changed their views on all of these matters in their alliance for austerity.

The motion "recognises" that there are more than 600,000 people with disabilities in the State and "recognises" their concern regarding cuts to services. It merely "notes" the pledges in the programme for Government and calls on the Government to provide the appropriate funding and services to honour "all" commitments to people with disabilities. It is not unreasonable to ask what Fianna Fáil mean by "all" in this motion. Does it include that party's own commitments to people with disabilities that it failed to uphold in spectacular fashion?

As Members of this House, we must ensure that a threshold of decency on disability supports is developed. There must be a political consensus that people with disabilities will have their dignity and rights maintained and their families will not be abandoned as a result of ongoing cutbacks.

Recently, we have seen images of citizens with profound disabilities who protested outside Leinster House at the cuts introduced by the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly. They struck a powerful chord with the Irish people. The courage and dignity of those who braved the elements to make their stand shone a light on the reality that, despite the promises of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste in the final pre­election leaders' debate last year, their Government has proceeded to enforce cut after cut on those with disabilities, their families and their carers.

Their broken promises on disabilities are the cruellest of all. If this Government took a Kango hammer and tore up our roads, there would be uproar, but that is exactly what it has been doing to support services for people with disabilities. Nine leading disability organisations spoke out on this scandal, yet the Government has still done nothing. We should make no mistake about this. Given Fianna Fáil's record in this area, it would not be acting any differently were it still in government.

The disability organisations have outlined a vision for people with disabilities and called on the Government to take urgent action on three key areas. First, halt reductions in the basic standard of living of people with disabilities requiring welfare supports. People with disabilities are most likely to experience real poverty because, on top of the recent cuts in benefit levels and new charges, they must also continue to pay for extras required due to their disabilities. They are among some of the most vulnerable groups that will lay awake tonight in fear at what fresh hell tomorrow's budget will bring.

Second, funding must be guaranteed to the services needed by people with disabilities. Cutting the services required by people with disabilities not only undermines their lives, but also leads to a growing public expenditure in terms of hospital stays and expensive care costs. It does not make economic, let alone ethical, sense to cut their services.

Third, it is a matter of urgency that the Government publish an ambitious implementation plan for the national disability strategy in keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities so that people can have dignity, individual autonomy and full and effective participation in Irish society.

People's faith in Ireland's eventual recovery depends not just on economic measures. Social protection for all people through this long, stressful period needs to be central to the Government's recovery plans. Government actions must address social inclusion and cohesion. Recent Government cuts have heightened these concerns in the run up to the budget. Sinn Féin fully endorses the people's call and we call on the Government to take up this challenge and honour its promises to our most vulnerable citizens.

Last year, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, announced proposals to stop disability payments to new claimants between aged 16 and 18 years. That measure was halted after people took to the streets. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, let the Minister for Social Protection take the fall, famously describing how they would "revisit" the matter. We must wait and see what will be "revisited" in the coming months.

As far as this motion is concerned, I welcome Fianna Fáil's Pauline conversion to the fight for disability rights. We can legitimately question the motivations behind it, but we support the right to full equality for people with disabilities.

The previous Government cut the income of people with disabilities and their carers by 10% across two budgets. The impact is still being felt. The people in question are some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the State. Community employment schemes, social welfare and so on impact on them. We need to put action behind the rhetoric. It is time for a threshold of decency on this issue.

I repeat my call to all parties, despite their previous and ongoing record, to examine the issue. What citizen, on being informed by elected Members that we would make an all-party, all-grouping consensus that no matter what happens we would not make further cuts to disabled people, their carers and families but we would maintain a threshold of decency, would disagree with the proposal? The issue is how we get to that stage. There has been a shameful history of failure to meet our obligations to citizens with disabilities in recent years. Perhaps we could start to reverse that, treat them as equal partners and give them their rights once and for all.

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