Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable. It is 22 years since the Supreme Court ruled that the son of Kathy Sinnott, who had autism and an intellectual disability, was not eligible for schooling past the age of 18. One of the most striking headlines I ever read in a newspaper was that by Victoria White in the Irish Examinerto the effect: "Happy 18th Tom, the State has just blown out candles on your fairytale".

That encapsulated what the State was doing to many people with disabilities around the country.

The Supreme Court judgment had a far-reaching consequence for many families with disabilities. One of the questions I hear the most, and I am sure the Minister of State has heard it too, is parents asking what is going to happen to their children when they die. That sentence is repeated every year in clinics I hold and I am sure that is the case in the Minister of State's clinics. It is a question we need to be able to answer. We need to be able to give confidence to people.

The Sinnott judgment was obviously welcome for those under the age of 18, but in parts of this country, many parents are still forced to drive long distances to bring their children to school simply because of a lack of the transport necessary to bring their children to school. That is in breach of Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Ireland has ratified. It is important to put on the record that elements of the optional protocol accompanying the convention have not yet been properly ratified. One such optional protocol would allow people the option to make complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities against Ireland. The State is currently preventing that.

In an email sent to me this morning, Rehab Group stated that amid the ongoing struggle, more than 12,000 adults and children with disabilities reliant on the crucial services provided by the Rehab Group are grappling with a stark reality. Many say they cannot survive independently without financial support from family. They depend on food banks to meet food bills and struggle to cope with exceptionally high energy costs. We know a significant number of people with disabilities are in a desperate struggle just to cover the costs of the most basic things in life.

Rehab, because of the financial pressures it is under, was forced to make redundant a large number of workers with disabilities in my town of Navan in County Meath in recent months. That just shows there is nearly a pincer movement of pressure currently on people with disabilities.

According to the census in 2016, 27% of homeless people had a disability. That is an important figure because it shows that successive governments have consistently neglected the disability sector and have not provided the necessary supports for people with disabilities and their families. It is a stark statistic and shows that people with disabilities are far more likely to become homeless. Incredibly, when the eviction ban Bill was coming through the Dáil, we in Aontú proposed an amendment that would ban no-fault evictions in cases of tenants with disabilities. The Government voted against that amendment, which is incredible.

I recently conducted some research into local authorities and how they are performing in respect of the provision of accommodation for people with disabilities. The results were incredible. A number of county councils confirmed to me that no meetings took place at all in 2020 to progress disability housing strategies. I made a freedom of information, FOI, request for the minutes of meetings of local authority housing and disability steering groups. Carlow, Laois and Donegal local authorities confirmed they had not held meetings. Cork County Council stated no such group existed, which is incredible.

There is a significant problem with how seriously we take the issue of care for people with disabilities in society. I know of a young woman who was forced to stay in a nursing home with older people simply because there were no carers to provide for her. An issue that has recently arisen in my own constituency is that carers working for the HSE are told they are no longer allowed to bring people for walks, be they older people or people with disabilities. Carers are not insured to bring people for walks. That is an incredible thing. We need to keep people as active and engaged with society as possible.

There is a trend in the Government's approach to care, whether for people with disabilities, older people in nursing homes, children in State care or children in childcare. We are letting down all of those sectors at the moment.

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