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

I welcome the motion on the report. I commend all the disabled people and the DPO representatives who appeared before us as witnesses and shared their lived or living experiences, because without that we would not have been able to compile the report. I also commend the Chair, Deputy Michael Moynihan, all the members of the committee and the secretariat because, again, without them, the report would not have been possible.

The report goes to the heart of the struggle for disability rights and the equality agenda for disabled people. The ratification of the UNCRPD was a milestone for the rights of persons with disabilities, but without the ratification of the optional protocol, disabled people have little recourse when their rights are denied. As Markus Schäfers, a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, has stated, the non-ratification of the optional protocol suggests Ireland is not confident or comfortable enough to open itself up to international scrutiny. Nothing is preventing the optional protocol from being ratified today and there should be no more excuses. It needs to be ratified without further delay because if we wait until we feel as though we can deliver everything it contains, it will never be ratified.

Without ratification, the rights of persons with disabilities are being denied, not least in respect of ensuring the right to independent living. The right to independent living is a crucial battle that people with disabilities are, unfortunately, having to fight. The ability to choose where and with whom to live and the ability to have privacy or to invite over friends and families are things most of us take for granted but that disabled people cannot. The medical model of disability, which seems to be still embedded within the Government's mindset and actions, must be assigned to the past. Investment in a training and development fund for disabled persons organisations to enable them to strengthen their ability to participate fully in consultation and cover the expenses they incur by taking part in these consultations is vital, and is an obligation under the UNCRPD. We need DPOs to consult the various bodies.

There is also a need to transfer, without delay, people from congregated settings into community settings with the appropriate supports. The target set down for the time to move on from congregated settings has long been missed, so we need a significant level of investment, with that investment to continue year on year until everybody has moved out of congregated settings, and I do not mean just from a larger to a smaller setting. That is not what most people want. They want independent living in their community.

Similarly, disabled people have been inappropriately placed in nursing homes. That practice is continuing and it should not be. Again, they need the proper supports.

As a committee, we urge the Government to review Part M of the planning and building control regulations to ensure that both public and private housing stock will be not only visitable but also habitable by persons with disabilities, including wheelchair users. The Government's national retrofit scheme is inequitable given that, currently, the same level of grant support for a deep retrofit is available for someone on the minimum wage as that which is available to a millionaire. People with a chronic illness or disability are more than twice as likely to be at risk of poverty as other adults and about twice as likely to experience basic deprivation and consistent poverty. There is a need to overhaul the national retrofit plan to ensure the resources are rapidly deployed and targeted at those living in energy poverty and in the greatest need of energy efficiency upgrades.

Ensuring independent living for persons with disabilities cannot begin without tackling the consistent poverty that is the experience of many disabled people. The Indecon report places this cost at anywhere between €8,700 and €12,300 per annum, but that is an average range and the figure could be even higher for some people. There needs to be a significant commitment to addressing this. The personal assistance service the Minister of State mentioned is an essential tool to enable disabled people to live independently, and I welcome the increase in the number of hours provided. Many applicants have told me they have either been refused or given hours insufficient to make a difference. Disabled people who have a personal assistant have told me about the huge difference the service makes to their lives, allowing them to live.

The Minister of State also mentioned transport, one of the key services that help persons with disabilities to participate in everyday life, obtain employment or engage in education. The motorised transport grant and the mobility allowance were stopped in 2013 because they were found to be inequitable. Instead of us addressing the issues, however, they were closed completely and not replaced, but they need to be replaced. Some people are in receipt of the mobility allowance while others are not, and that is not equitable whatsoever. The only scheme at the moment is the disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme and most people do not even qualify for that. The conditions are stringent and there is no appeals board for those who have been turned down and want to appeal the decision. We need to see progress on transport to ensure both public and private transport will be accessible.

On the costs of disability in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, it was brought to my attention that persons in receipt of the disability payment for social protection who have taken up a training course and been transferred to a training allowance for the duration of the course will not be entitled to the €500 cost-of-living lump sum payment they would have got if they had remained on the disability payment. My party colleague Deputy Kerrane submitted a parliamentary question on this to the Minister for Social Protection, who confirmed it is true, and I do not think that is fair. Seven of ten people on one training course left the course today because they want to receive the payment, and they had been advised by their local social welfare office to do so to get the payment. This is sending a very bad message to the disability community. Disability does not just disappear because a person takes up a training course, and the cost of living and the poverty experienced by disabled people do not vanish if someone joins a training course. This does not fit into a rights-based model of disability. In fact, some older people have told me they have a disability and receive a pension but they are not getting the €500 either. They have asked whether their disability disappears when they turn 66. Perhaps the Minister of State will speak to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, on the issue because it is very important and we are sending the wrong message to disabled people. It is encouraging people to leave training courses, but it is so important that we get people back into employment.

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