Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The €100 million in additional funding for disability services is welcome and I commend the Government on this allocation. I commend all those families and providers that worked so hard to bring this about. That they were left so long and had to fight so hard is an indictment of this and previous Governments, though, and much more needs to be done, but it is a good first step.

Although I welcome the allocation, I do so with caution. It is apparently for new measures, but Sinn Féin proposed an allocation of €130 million in current funding and €20 million in capital funding, which is needed to meet the costs associated with Covid alone. Will we see the budget's allocation being made available immediately to allow the restoration of services?

Elsewhere in the budget expenditure report, away from the headline figure, we see that it is envisaged that day services are only to be reopened one extra day per week. This still leaves a 40% reduction in such services for people with disabilities. With this meagre increase in provision, will there be any extra support for transport so that people will be able to access these services? Additional money was found to reopen our schools fully and resource extra school transport. As such, why discriminate against people with disabilities?

While I am discussing day services, the Government needs to give a commitment – the Minister of State has done so, but I wonder whether she will hold to it – that if new restrictions are brought in, day services will not be suspended or reduced again. The people who depend on these services have suffered enough from closures. There is a commitment to keeping schools open so long as doing so is safe. The same should be the case in respect of day services.

Although the allocation is to be welcomed as a first step, it falls well short of the actual figure needed to even begin to address the many issues faced by people with disabilities and their families, carers and service providers. The post-budget analysis conducted by Social Justice Ireland, SJI, designated that "no progress" would be made in terms of poverty reduction for people with disabilities and their families and carers. SJI points to the fact that "the Budget did not ... introduce a cost of disability payment". It also states: "If people with a disability are to be equal participants in society, the extra costs generated by their disability should not be borne by them alone." This is why Sinn Féin's alternative budget document proposed a total package of more than €300 million for the disability sector, including a €10 increase in social welfare payments for people with disabilities; €12 million for housing adaptation grants, which is more than four times what the Government has promised; and a €300 increase in the carer's support grant for each recipient, which is twice what the Government has allocated.

Whatever financial assistance was allocated in the budget for people with disabilities and their families and carers, it will be lost to the increases in home heating and motoring costs brought about by the hike in carbon tax. How can this be described as a just transition? As for the effect the budget will have on rural communities such as my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, the approach seems to be to kick them when they are down. Carbon taxes and VRT changes will come as a blow to people who have no option but to drive and who have no money to change to electric vehicles. While Government leaders might like the morning jaunt into Leinster House on their bikes each day from their nearby bases, that option is not available to the people in my constituency who have to travel 20 or 30 miles to work each day. Are farmers and agricultural contractors expected to change to electric vehicles? That is not a possibility.

The consequences of the carbon tax are also having negative effects on businesses along the Border, in particular coal merchants who can no longer carry smoky and smokeless coal on the same lorry, therefore greatly increasing their costs in fuel, labour and time. At the same time, people are smuggling fuels in from across the Border where there is no carbon tax. We need an all-island approach to this issue.

Cavan has a very serious housing problem and the budget will do very little to solve it. The Government should have grasped this unique opportunity to begin the largest house-building programme in the State's history. Such an initiative would have stimulated the economy, addressed the social and affordable housing shortage and given people real hope in these difficult times that they can secure a home for their family.

I was contacted today by several angry new mothers who were promised three additional weeks of maternity leave but are now being told the extended cover will not be introduced until April. Is this true? Was it not the whole point of the additional weeks that they would benefit those who endured maternity leave under lockdown, when they had almost no support from any family or other agencies?

In conclusion, the budget has let a lot of people down and has seen a lot of promises and expectations not fulfilled.

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