Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are talking about a cut of about 25% per person with a disability. It is not okay. It is a bad mark on this country. What we cannot afford is more cuts. This year in Wicklow, Sunbeam House faced huge cuts. We managed to get some of them restored but still services had to be squeezed. Currently, St. Catherine’s in Wicklow, which supports about 250 children with medium, profound and severe disabilities, is facing very serious cuts. In fairness to the HSE managers, they are working with St. Catherine’s. I accept there were governance issues but those HSE managers have to balance budgets that are being cut and cut and the people who suffer are the most marginalised and under-protected in the country. That is just not good enough. That is not okay.

What can we do? The Government could promise immediately that there would be no more cuts and that it would prioritise those men, women and children more than the bankers and the people with the big pensions. We could ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We are one of only three European countries that has not done this to date. We signed the convention in March 2007. That is not good enough. We could target unemployment better. The Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, has introduced a ten-year plan for the National Disability Authority to examine the issue. The annual budget, the social welfare system and other areas must also be brought in line to target unemployment.

We must introduce equality budgeting. For three years on budget day I have asked the Government to bring in a piece of paper to Dáil Éireann to show how the budget affects people with disabilities, those on low incomes and both genders but for three years the Government has refused to provide the information. The only conclusion I can reach after three years of this most reasonable request is that the Government is hiding the effects of what it is doing; it is embarrassed about those effects and it is not willing to face up to that. There are four ideas for things that can and must change.

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