Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The decision to abolish two key allowances - the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant - for people with disabilities is incomprehensible and wrong, in particular without any alternative being put in place for the recipients. It will be a permanent cut of more than €208 per month for up to 5,000 people with disabilities receiving those allowances. No other person in our society at this juncture has been asked to take a 20% cut in his or her income. That people with very serious mobility and disability issues should be forced to do so at the stroke of a pen is scandalous and reprehensible.

The chief executive officer of the Disability Federation of Ireland has articulated on behalf of its members and people affected how appalled they are at this decision. As he pointed out, most of the people involved are only in receipt of approximately €190 per week. The only definite timeline in the Minister's announcement is that to end permanently the allowances. There is no timeline in terms of alternatives or the special review group.

This is a very severe cut which is unprecedented and was made without consultation with the groups. What is the Government's difficulty in dealing effectively and in a visionary way with people with disabilities? If one goes back over the past two years, the disability allowance was cut in the Government's very first budget, home help hours were cut last August and there was a cut to personal assistants and people had to camp outside Government Buildings to reverse that cut. For the first time in 40 years, there has been an end to dedicated guidance counsellor provision in schools which will affect the mental health of our young people. There have been cuts to the domiciliary care allowance and to the therapies, including physiotherapy and speech and language therapy, for people with disabilities. Above all, in the last budget, there was a cut in the respite care grant. If one adds it all up, it amounts to a severe attack on people with disabilities at the very minimum and an incoherent approach to people with disabilities, an inability to look across the spectrum and a lack of an overall approach to assist people in what is a very difficult time, which we acknowledge. People with disabilities are unnecessarily bearing the brunt of the Government's targets. Will the Taoiseach consider reversing this decision today?

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