Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Tully and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this important motion tonight. Relaxing the carer's allowance means test and increasing the disability allowance, invalidity pension, illness benefit, carer's allowance and benefit, and the annual carer's support grant is of paramount importance. I believe that taking care of people in their own home is the best place you can have them. The money it costs to give somebody a proper allowance to take care of those people at home is important. Being a carer or a person with a disability in Ireland is not easy. We need the Constitution to recognise that all these people should have rights to State services and resources, not patronising sleights of hand and pats on the head. Parents have already had to go to court to vindicate their children's rights. A change of wording in the Constitution giving pure lip service is just another act of virtue signalling by an out-of-touch Government.

There are other issues that have to be looked at. For instance, the primary medical certificate that entitles a person to an allowance to have adjustments made to a disabled person's car is so restrictive. I will give the Ministers an example. If you are totally blind and want to be a disabled passenger, you cannot be one.

It is not allowed for in the rules and regulations. Blind people are completely discriminated against. That is ridiculous. I am not blaming the Ministers. I am saying that successive Ministers over the years have ignored that, and it is something that should be looked at. Really, this is about taking care of the carers - the people who give care to our older or disabled people, whether they have intellectual or physical disabilities. Those people should be treated properly.

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