Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Minister for Social Protection to address an anomaly and a serious matter. The disability equality (miscellaneous provisions) Bill is required to allow ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to make further technical amendments to disability and equality law. I am seeking to highlight the denial of disability payments to our own citizens when they go abroad for treatment. I am thinking specifically of the case of a young man who has had to leave his children behind. His wife has gone with him. It is very wrong that he is being denied his disability payments because he is outside the country. He is sleeping for 22 hours. At a time when we are giving over €600 million in foreign aid, which is being administered by dictators who are buying guns with it, it would be appropriate for this man and people like him to get disability payments when they are abroad.

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