Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

A.

To insert the following after "training and development funding for Disabled Persons Organisations (DPOs)": "- people with disabilities have faced a cost-of-living crisis for decades, and the 2021 Central Statistics Office Survey on Income and Living Conditions data shows increases in disability poverty across all indicators, at a time when the national averages decreased; and

- people with disabilities face poverty rates three to five times higher than the national average, and the at-risk of poverty rate for those not at work due to a long-standing health condition (disability) for 2021 was 39.1 per cent;" B.

To insert the following after "ratify the Optional Protocol to the UNCRPD": "- increase the Disability Allowance, the Blind Pension and the Invalidity Pension to €350 per week;

- increase the Domiciliary Care Allowance to €350 per month; and

- increase the Carer's Support Grant (formerly Respite Care Grant) from €1,850 to €2,500".

I am supposed to be sharing time with Deputy Barry but he is not in the Chamber.

I thank Deputy Tully for putting this motion before the House and giving us a chance to speak up yet again for people with disabilities. In the past few years, it has been the people living with disabilities who have been the most vocal and visible on these issues, much more so than politicians and others who claim to advocate for them. I watch with huge joy, interest and hope for the future as young people like Sophia Mulvany take control of their lives and advocate strongly for what needs to be done for people with disabilities.

I refer to the press release issued last May by FUSS Ireland before a huge protest it held. It stated:

Every day, we watch our children regress. We watch them miss out on school places. They sit in pain in equipment that is too small or unsuitable. We watch them disappear from their communities and their families waiting for a lifeline that they are constantly told is coming.

Some people might think that is too stark but it is not. It certainly is not too stark for those who live with this reality. As FUSS Ireland noted, more than 100,000 children can languish on waiting lists across the country. Inclusion Ireland's report, Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People, found 85% waited a year or more to access disability services.

This was echoed by Down Syndrome Ireland, in a report on the lack of services published in 2022, which found an average of 44% of children in all community healthcare organisations had no therapy of any kind in the previous 12 months. That figure rose to a staggering 95% when it came to psychological support services. I acknowledge that we were coming out of Covid in 2021 but, nevertheless, the statistics are staggering and will have a real impact on the lives of those people.

The Sinn Féin motion is not just about children. Hopefully, all going well and with a bit more input from the State and improvement to these services, these children will live long enough to become adults and enjoy an independent life. That is why, in its motion, Sinn Féin has rightly tried to address how the budget has failed to resource support services to meet not just the current needs of children, but also the current and future needs of adults. I think a lot might go under the radar here. My local community care centre in Cherry Orchard, which is a fine centre that is well-resourced, gets referrals from the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. For example, one man that I am representing was referred for an electric wheelchair to be made available and the centre was to look after it. He was told last May that he would be waiting at least until next May to access that wheelchair because of a lack of staff. There is a serious lack of staffing across these services. It impacts not just children, but also adults who are trying to navigate life as they do their best to live with what can be terrible injuries and disabilities.

I note the Minister of State spoke about the day services that are a vital support for adults to help them participate in life in their communities. I have been in touch with the Minister of State about a particular case, and the situation has not changed. I refer to the case of a severely autistic young man, who needs support to be able to travel to a very good day centre that he attends. He gets no support from the State because he is over 18. He is unable to navigate public transport because of his epilepsy and the severity of his autism, so his mam, who is a fully trained nurse and a special needs assistant, cannot work because she drives him to access the services. She is isolated. She wants to participate fully in society, and we need her. We are short of workers like her, but she cannot work because the State will not provide any support - not a penny - to transport her son to the training services he needs daily. That is one example. What that tells me is that our services are too structured. When I tried to get to the bottom of the issue it was sent from the Department of Transport to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Department of Health. It went all over the houses before someone finally came back and said "No can do". Why are we saying that to people, when it is not rocket science to give them a small bit of support to help them live a decent, full life and to use their talents in the health and education sectors where we need them?

I want to briefly talk about the optional protocol to the UNCRPD. I must ask why the UN made this protocol optional in the first place. However, it is optional. When UN representatives speak to it, as Mr. Markus Schefer did at a the meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters held to discuss the rights of persons with disabilities in May 2021, they are quite hard on countries that have not signed up to the optional protocol. Mr. Schefer said:

The optional protocol and the convention together are one whole. That is why the [UN] committee continuously urges and recommends member states to ratify the optional protocol... It is important that, even from the international level, we give people who think their rights have been violated under the convention a recourse outside of their country...

According to Mr. Schefer, not ratifying the protocol has "legal and political" impacts for those countries that take that decision. He stated: "If you do not ratify the optional protocol, you will leave out the Judiciary and, as in all areas of law, if you leave out the Judiciary something is lacking and implementation will suffer." He went on to talk about the symbolic consequence of not ratifying the protocol, which "tells the world community" that we, in this country, are "not comfortable enough" with what weare doing "to have an external body in a court-like procedure examine whether ... internal actions, as they transform to individuals, are in conformity with the CRPD." There is a problem here. I am aware that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is going to address the optional protocol later on. The UN should never have made the protocol optional, but now that it is optional, it is a very bad optic for Ireland in front of the world community, never mind the citizens of its own country, that it is failing on a daily basis.

Lastly, I will speak about the People Before Profit-Solidarity amendment to the motion. We have tabled the amendment because the first paragraph of the Sinn Féin motion, which, as I said, we strongly welcome, states that "Budget 2023 has failed to resource and fund disability support services and infrastructure that the Government itself has identified as essential to meet current and future unmet need for children and adults". We have put in this amendment to try to address that. Most of us have only been facing the cost-of-living crisis recently, whereas people with disabilities have been facing it for years. We want to add to the motion the following:

— people with disabilities have faced a cost-of-living crisis for decades, and the 2021 Central Statistics Office Survey on Income and Living Conditions data shows increases in disability poverty across all indicators, at a time when the national averages decreased; and

— people with disabilities face poverty rates three to five times higher than the national average, and the at-risk of poverty rate for those not at work due to a long-standing health condition (disability) for 2021 was 39.1 per cent;

We also call on the Minister for Health to:

— increase the Disability Allowance, the Blind Pension and the Invalidity Pension to €350 per week;

— increase the Domiciliary Care Allowance to €350 per month; and

— increase the Carer's Support Grant (formerly Respite Care Grant) from €1,850 to €2,500.

This is not about point-scoring; it is to point out that there are realities of poverty in this country. There are cost-of-living struggles that we all recognise, but people with disabilities face them to a much greater extent. We need to address that. We recognised it during the Covid lockdowns, when everyone was put on a payment of €350 a week. Now, all of a sudden, how come they can live on much less, particularly when they have to meet the challenges of paying more for transport, clothing, supports and care? That cannot be ignored.

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