Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of it, but there are a couple of things we have to be conscious of in addition to that. An artist under the basic income for the arts scheme may be able to work 40 hours per week in applying themselves to the arts, but that may not be possible for an artist who has disability. They may only be able to apply themselves for ten hours a week, for example. That is very different. That should not mean they lose their blind pension or their disability payments. There is not one homogenous type of disability. We need to take into account that the basic income for the arts scheme for artists is a great thing, but when it is applied to a person with a disability we cannot apply the same standards.

I appreciate that representatives from the Minister’s Department are meeting with their counterparts in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, but we need to find a solution for this. Its consequences have been that people with a disability are removing themselves from the scheme. That is the opposite of what we should be encouraging people with disabilities to do. There is clearly a lacuna here that needs to be addressed. The Minister’s Department has demonstrated some goodwill in getting in front of it, but we cannot stop there. It has consequences for people with disabilities, who are removing themselves from the scheme and being treated unfairly.

See this speech in context