Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

During the general election campaign of 2011 there was much debate about where cuts would have to be made and which sections of society would have to take the greater burden of the adjustments. One of the key questions asked in several debates and interviews with party leaders was: "What group will you prioritise for protection from cuts?" The Taoiseach and the former Tánaiste, now an author in the fiction bestseller list, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, both promised to prioritise disability services as an issue and said that not only would they defend the disabled, but when things improved they would also prioritise disability services for improvement. How hollow that promise sounds today. Far from defending the disabled, the Government elected in 2011 attacked them. Far from prioritising them, it placed the interests of those on incomes in excess of the average industrial wage ahead of them. Far from understanding it as a fundamental issue of human rights and citizenship, it continued to attack the disabled with the old attitude of taking a charitable approach to the issue, not one of rights. If there was a little extra after looking after other interest groups, the disabled could have the crumbs that fell from the table.

Despite the restoration of the respite care grant, which Fianna Fail welcomes, there is little in the Bill, or in the broader measures announced in the budget, for people with disabilities. They have seen their incomes and services eroded under the Government and the Bill offers very little to a group that is already vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion. The €3 increase in pensions does not apply to invalidity pension. The Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, appears to believe those already struggling with the higher costs associated with their disability are immune from an increase in the cost of living. Based on figures provided for me yesterday by the Minister, the annual cost of increasing their payments in line with other pension payments would have been just €9.8 million. An increase of €5 per week, an increase that would have come closer to matching the cost of living, would have cost €16.4 million per year. This is evidently the value the Minister and the Government place on those living with a disability. This was the price they were willing to make such people pay to ensure the Government could cut taxes for those on almost twice the average industrial wage.

In her written response the Minister boasts that while she did not increase these payments, she increased the Christmas bonus, which I welcome. However, does understand people must live for 12 months of the year? The bonus will not spread over 52 weeks. That this should be offered in place of a general increase is an insult to the intelligence of the people working and surviving in the disability sector. It is shameful how little regard the Government has for people with disabilities. From my engagement with the sector, I can tell the Minister that the anger is growing and that those involved are now starting to realise their electoral strength. They are not victims but citizens who are demanding their rights and they will make their voices heard.

The Government has failed to restore the housing adaptation grant for people with a disability, for which Fianna Fáil called in its pre-budget submission. This failure has consequences. Some people with disabilities are now trapped not only within their homes but within parts of them. Does the Minister have any comprehension of the difficulties some people face in performing simple tasks such as cooking and maintaining their personal hygiene? Does she appreciate how her failure to restore the grant for the most vulnerable in order that it could be sacrificed for tax cuts is a blatant abdication of recognition for those who have been excluded from society?

The budget offered no alternative to the mobility allowance and the motorised transport scheme which were closed in 2013. People with disabilities have been overlooked in recent budgets and will not see their living standards improve in 2016. Once the cost of living is taken into account, including all of the extra charges and taxes payable, people with a disability will continue to see their standard of living fall.

The Minister's own failings have been compounded by the failings of her colleague, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, who has obstinately refused to support an increase in personal assistant hours for people in wheelchairs.

Much of the infrastructure required for people with disabilities to lead full and independent lives has been dismantled by the current Government. Budget 2016 and this Bill are missed opportunities and constitute a failure to enhance the lives of people with a disability. Over and over again, the Government has attacked the capacity of people with disabilities to participate fully in society. It has failed to advance the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and it has failed to advance by one whit the cause of human rights and equality for people with disability.

The motto of this Government has been "yes to equality", but only for some. Orwell's Animal Farmcomes to mind: all are equal but some more equal than others. Economic equality, if it costs the Exchequer 1 cent, will be resisted and, ultimately, refused. The Government pays lip-service to equality but, ultimately, has no real commitment to it, as we saw with the failure of commitment in response to the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion on the Travelling community. The commitment to equality is very much that of the Sandymount liberal sect; if it does not cost money then yes, we can have the equality but if it disrupts the economic power relations within our society, if it affects the upper and middle classes, we cannot have that equality, because it is a cost to the Exchequer. In the same week Ministers were busy having themselves photographed in PantiBar and tweeting of their joy at the victory for equality, we had the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, acting as apologists for pubs that shut their doors to the grieving Travellers in Wexford.

Those with disabilities have been told their place is to wait at the back of the queue, and the Bill reinforces that. Even at this late hour, as the Government stumbles forward, could the Minister not reconsider the shameful abandonment and disregard for those with disabilities by her and her Cabinet colleagues and make some gesture that indicates people with disabilities are valued as citizens of this republic? If she were to do so, she would find no shortage of support in the House. I invite her now to face down the Tory element of this Government and insist that this group be enabled to participate as full citizens within our society.

Our past in this country with regard to people with disability has been shameful. We have an opportunity in this Bill to address that. I believe it is past time we began to address it and to ensure that all of the children of the nation are cherished equally.

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