Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Tully for her work on this Private Members' motion. I welcome Shane Scanlan of the nursing homes alliance to the Gallery this evening. People with disabilities and their carers deserve so much better than the raw deal the Government is currently giving them. These people already deal with so many difficulties in their daily lives. They need access to supports and services, which can mean the difference between struggling and living their lives to their best ability. I am referring to things like timely assessment of needs, therapy supports and personal assistance. Having listened to Shelly Gaynor of Independent Living Movement Ireland speaking on how her personal assistant is her life, I understand how vital these supports are to people like Shelly and what a difference they make. Instead, the people with disabilities and their carers feel abandoned and cast aside by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, which have consistently failed to deliver rights-based access for supports for disabilities. The disability action plan is all well and good but in the absence of a proper multiannual funding plan to deliver it, including extension of independent living supports, access to therapies and being able to access respite services, it is all very much pie in the sky.

The dedicated individuals caring for people with specific needs also need more support. You cannot call a payment a financial support if it does not even come up to the minimum essential standard of living test. Measures like relaxing the means test for carer's allowance and increasing amounts across invalidity, disability and other related payments would have significant benefits and the Minister knows that. What is needed here, and what Sinn Féin is calling for in this motion, is the immediate ratification of the optional protocol, introduction of a rights-based charter for family carers, and realistic standard of living payment levels. There has to be proper payments. In government, Sinn Féin would prioritise people with disabilities and carers and it is time the Government did too.

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