Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy were to ask me what is happening right now, I would say that all of the Departments are looking at the cost of disability. She has quite rightly identified that the extra costs faced by people with a disability vary depending on the disability. However, there is a standard of living cost as well. A person who has a prosthetic may face extra costs of €20,000, depending on whether or not their medical card will cover these costs. It might, but it might not cover the cost of the prosthetic they require. It might not meet the needs of a child undergoing two or three growth spurts in a year. That is one of the elements. The other element that was really interesting in the report was how expensive it is for the families of children with challenging behaviours or autism spectrum disorder, ASD, to get extra care and so on. That is being looked at. It is being divided and compartmentalised. Each Department will come back in March with its own suggestions as to what exactly it is going to do.

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