Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While the upcoming referendum on care in the home aims to provide constitutional recognition for Ireland's family carers, the Governments needs to provide much more substantial supports to both carers and those with disabilities. Financial supports for people with disabilities and family carers are inadequate and fail minimum essential standards of living tests. The Department’s own cost of disability report published in 2021 shows the extra cost in Ireland of being disabled ranges from €9,000 to €12,000. This is before a disabled citizen pays rent or tries to feed themselves. The current disability allowance is €11,440 a year and barely meets this additional cost of disability itself. Disability allowance should be a universal, non-means-tested payment. These payments do not come close to covering the costs, nor do they provide access to the additional supports required by carers.

Family Carers Ireland reported that 1,484 carers care for a total number of 1,984 people, representing a range of caring situations. These are parents caring for a child with an illness or disability, those caring for an adult, carers of older people and those caring for multiple people. Family carers provide an invaluable contribution to our community. One in eight of our population is a family carer, and as I have stated in this House many times, they provide a critical service the State does not provide. To be above the poverty line you need €380 a week, yet around 250,000 paid carers are recorded as having second jobs to survive. For many people with disabilities and their carers, the rising cost of living and an insufficient allowance have meant slipping beneath the poverty line and struggling to make ends meet. The weekly disability allowance of €232 does not cover the additional costs of living with a disability. We must look at increasing the disability allowance, invalidity pension, illness benefit, carer’s allowance and benefit, and the annual carer’s support grant. Carers and people with a disability need access to respite, to better funding and to better services. We must accept and realise that the €55.6 million in additional new development funding which was provided for disability services in budget 2024 is not adequate to deliver the measures contained in the disability services action plan. Just look at the ongoing scoliosis surgery crisis. Disabled children have been left for years on waiting lists for spinal surgery and, as a result, are experiencing complications almost unheard of in other EU states. They then require more complex surgeries and often unplanned emergency interventions, which lead to negative life-limiting and life-altering consequences.

Disability services for both children and adults are failing not only in my own constituency of County Louth and east Meath but countrywide. There is a crisis in the recruitment and retention of physiotherapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists. Tens of thousands of disabled people and people with intellectual disabilities, neurodiversity or mental health issues remain on waiting lists. We must do more to provide additional capacity and supports to both those who need it and their carers. The Government must commit to a multi-annual funding plan for delivering the disability action plan and an updated national carers strategy, specifically in relation to assessments of need, therapy supports, wait list reduction, personal assistants, home care assistants, community services, assistive technology and respite. We need to commit to a human rights approach to disability and caring.

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