Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion and giving us an opportunity to discuss this important issue. The Social Democrats will be supporting the motion. I did not believe the figure of €64 million of additional expenditure for investment in disability services when I first read it in the budget document. It is a pitiful investment into improving services with so much unmet need. I and my team pored through the budget document to see whether we had missed anything. I listened to the Minister of State at a press conference to see whether she could bring clarity to the matter, only to hear her announce a €195 million package for disability services.On "Prime Time" the Minister for Finance announced that the Government had provided around €200 million of increased expenditure for disability services. This figure was absolutely nowhere to be seen in the budget document I received.

A day after the budget was announced we received clarity. Ministers included funding for existing services alongside new expenditure to make the disability budget look bigger than it is. Despite all the spin, the level of investment is exactly what was outlined in the budget, €64 million. That figure represents an abject failure by the Government to invest in our disability services, a failure to address the unmet needs in the sector.

Week after week - I have been here many times with the Minister of State - we raise the crisis facing the disability sector and every time we are met with the same kind of rhetoric from the Government, which is that of course it cares, of course it is doing everything it can to improve the lives of disabled people and how dare we even question that rhetoric. However, I do question it. If the Government will not invest in disability services with a €14 billion budget, when will it? When does the Government intend to take responsibility for the people with disabilities? I have genuinely lost faith that the Government ever will.

The Disability Capacity Review to 2032: a Review of Social Care Demand and Capacity Requirements to 2032, published in 2021, quantifies the current and future need for disability support services. One of the key issues highlighted was

... significant levels of unmet need for disability services, and that changes in the size and age profile of the disability service population will add to unmet need over the coming decade. Addressing demographic change alone would not be sufficient, as the current level of unmet need is not sustainable.

An additional €550 million to €1 billion needs to be spent each year to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population between now and 2032. This funding is needed for residential services, supported housing, adult day programmes, multidisciplinary therapy services, personal assistants, respite and the list goes on. The disability capacity review outlined the situation. It was up to the Government to respond quickly and sufficiently. There have been three separate budgets since the review was published and none has come close to meeting funding targets. The Government has had the opportunity time and again to provide the funding to make long-term improvements to disabled people's lives and every time the Government has passed. There has been no plan to do anything about it since those three opportunities were passed up.

In April last year, the Minister for Health informed the Dáil that a working group tasked with developing an action plan for the period 2022 to 2025 had completed its work. A year and a half later, that action plan has not been published. Where is the plan? Where is the urgency to meet the current unmet need, not to mind future need? The Social Democrats would have allocated a total package of €534.1 million for disability services ensuring adequate funding for the huge capacity gaps in existing services. We also would have introduced a €30 per week cost-of-disability payment in addition to core increases in social welfare rates. The Government's Cost of Disability in Ireland: Research Report revealed that people with disabilities face up to €12,300 in additional costs annually for transport, fuel, equipment aids, medical expenses and much more. This report was done before the current cost-of-living crisis and we all know that for many people the added cost of having a disability is far higher than €12,300 a year. There is a substantial additional cost to living with a disability. There is an impact on individuals' and their families' quality of life and on their future prospects.

It has been ten years since the then Fine Gael and Labour Party Government axed the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant. At the time, then Minister for Transport, Deputy Varadkar, promised replacement schemes would quickly be launched. A decade later those replacement schemes are nowhere to be seen.

The same lack of urgency apparent in the implementation in of the disability capacity review has been evident in the Government's treatment of section 39 workers. The Social Democrats has always been clear that we support pay parity for community and voluntary workers who provide many of our vital disability services. Pay parity for these workers was somehow completely absent from the budget. I am glad the strike scheduled for this morning was averted.

It is important to note that the matter was completely avoidable. Section 39, section 56 and section 10 workers went to the WRC this year, along with the State, as the paymaster, and were offered a 5% pay rise by the State. This insulting offer was rightly rejected by the unions. The pay differential between section 39 and HSE workers is estimated to be between 10% to 20%, depending on the role. There was also no offer to link their pay to the public sector, which means that when public sector pay goes up, generally yearly, section 39 workers fall further behind again.

The talks broke down in July and unions repeatedly made it clear to the State that they were willing to negotiate further, but the Government refused to engage. Left with no option, the workers balloted for strike action and gave the Government 21 days’ notice of industrial action. Again, the Government refused to engage. People with disabilities, older people, carers and section 39 workers themselves were in an incredible amount of stress over the potential strike. No one wanted to be out on the picket but no other option had been made available to them.

I was on the "Up Front with Katie Hannon" show last night. I listened to people in the audience who did not know if their personal assistant would be there this morning to help them out of bed or to get to work. Martha, a healthcare assistant from Cork, was on the show and she described an older patient she has asking her if she would even be able to get a bowl of soup tomorrow. One could be forgiven for engaging in a cynical reading of the Department's decision to wait until the last possible moment to re-engage in negotiations, after people have been put under an incredible amount of unnecessary stress and anxiety. While I have not seen the full detail of the proposal to workers, I have read about a pay increase of 8%, which falls below pay parity. The serious problems with recruitment and retention for the sector will continue for as long as there is a pay differential. The turnover in the community and volunteer sector is around 30% yearly. It is haemorrhaging staff to the HSE and agencies are spending a huge amount of money and resources on recruitment. This adds to the long waiting lists for services. The terms of the proposed settlement will be put to the membership of the unions for consideration, but the Minister of State must ensure that what emerges at the end of this process is fair and sustainable. I cannot see a way for that to occur without complete pay parity between section 39 organisations and the HSE.

Time and again, the Minister of State has come into the Committee on Disability Matters. We hear from people in that committee week-on-week about how their lives are torn apart and ruined and how there are missed opportunities for early intervention, which is the key thing in terms of whether or not you can live a full and independent life going forward. When the Department, the HSE and the Minister of State come in, hands are thrown in the air and we are ultimately told that we cannot recruit the staff. That is where the biggest problem lies in terms of access to treatments under the CDNTs and all of those things. We are told about the millions of euro that are being pumped into trying to recruit staff for the CDNTs and other disability services. Then we have a situation where there is a €14 billion budget. The biggest issue of staffing in the sector is the fact that there is no pay parity and this was not addressed or even mentioned in the budget. It is fair to say that people genuinely believe that when the Minister of State comes to meetings in all of our constituencies, etc., she cares. Everyone can see that, but when there is a budget that does not allocate anything for something like that, which has €64 million - and I genuinely thought that was a typo - it is difficult to believe that this Government will ever take the necessary steps to meet the unmet needs of disabled people in Ireland.

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