Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: notes that the Department of Social Protection's Green Paper on Disability Reform:

— proposes to introduce three "tiers" of payments depending on a person's supposed ability to work;

— was published with no consultation with disabled people, and is opposed by a wide range of disabled people and their organisations;

- will do nothing to lift disabled people out of poverty;

— if implemented, would pressure many disabled people into work that is unsuitable;

— proposes a cruel and discriminatory system that international experience has shown causes undue stress for disabled people and endangers their mental and physical health by demanding they go through a job-seeker process not designed for disabled people;

— is based on a flawed idea that it is a straightforward process to assess people with disabilities, and those with invisible and episodic disabilities will face particular difficulties under this system; and

— puts no obligations on employers to make work accessible, despite Ireland having very weak legal obligations on workplace accessibility;

further notes that:

— the intervention of many disabled people into the debate around the Government's Referendum on the 40th Amendment to the Constitution "The Care Amendment", highlighted injustices they face due to ableism and the failures of the State to guarantee their rights and was an important factor in defeating that referendum;

— in a report by the Department of Social Protection in 2021 entitled "The Cost of Disability in Ireland" the estimated cost of living with a disability was between €8,700 - €12,300 per year, accounting for inflation this would now be between €9,822 and €13,886 per year;

— one in five who are unable to work due to long-standing health problems live in consistent poverty and one in two in deprivation;

— due to ableist and discriminatory obstacles, disabled people are hit harder by the many social crises facing the wider population, and disabled people are:

— twice as likely to be homeless;

— more likely to be unemployed or underemployed, with Ireland having the highest level of unemployment among disabled people in the European Union;

— due to lack of supports, forced out of education and twice as likely to leave school early; and

— more likely to suffer ill health, with 25 per cent reporting "bad or very bad health", 43 per cent depression, and a quarter have unmet health needs;

— disabled people who are women, non-binary, LGBTQI, immigrants, members of the Traveller community, or other ethnic groups face additional challenges to accessing services and worse outcomes as a result;

— the State has failed children with disabilities and their parents/guardians, and 8,893 children are now overdue for assessment of need, with 6,963 waiting more than three months, and 17,157 waiting for first contact with a children's disability network team, with a waiting list for treatment of over 110,000;

— an economic system that sees workers as a commodity to increase profit, and sees supports and rights for people as a cost, will always marginalise and discriminate against people with disabilities and foster a culture of ableism;

— there is a long history of systemic marginalisation of disabled people by the State, with policies of institutionalisation and a chronic lack of investment in services, supports, care, research, and an outsourcing of care to religious organisations, charities and the family, and these policies have compounded discrimination and injustice;

— the State has resisted disabled people seeking rights through the courts and forced them to campaign for services and supports, in particular from the social protection and healthcare systems, with many disabled people having to constantly reapply for a medical card or other entitlements; and

— the means-testing of Disability Allowance, Carer's Allowance, medical cards and many other supports results in huge stress and pressure on disabled people and their families, with many unable to form families, and vulnerable to abusive relationships; and

calls on the Government to:

— immediately scrap the Green Paper on Disability Reform, to genuinely consult with disabled people about any reforms, and commit to no linking of payments to work;

— introduce a system of non-means-tested universal payments that cover the real costs of having a disability and provide income security to disabled people;

— introduce a guaranteed living wage for carers that is not means tested;

— massively expand personal assistance hours as a right to ensure that there is personal assistance to all who need it to study, work, socialise and live a full life, and guarantee that all personal assistants have decent pay and conditions;

— immediately ratify the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and

— introduce a constitutional amendment to assert equality for disabled people and to guarantee for all the rights to supports needed to fully engage in society as a basic democratic right.

I will share time with Deputies Gino Kenny and Paul Murphy. There is a new force in Irish society. The more than 1-million-strong disabled community, led by a strong and brave group of activists, has already made its mark in 2024. We saw it first in the care referendum, when disabled activists raised their voices against an amendment which would go no further than "strive" in terms of State support. That intervention was a definite factor in the defeat of the referendum by a crushing margin and I think the Government knows it. Then we saw a coalition of disabled people's organisations raise its voice against the Government's Green Paper which aimed to link disability payments to capacity for work as determined by medical assessment. That was a copy of the cruel and discredited system in place in the UK, despite all the denials from the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, and the Government.

Last Friday, the Government scrapped the Green Paper rather than face into another clash with the disabled community in an election year. I believe it conceded on Friday rather than have to vote in support of the Green Paper tonight. The Government will promote a narrative that puts the changes down to the arrival of Simon Harris in the Taoiseach’s office, but such a narrative lacks credibility. Simon Harris was part of a Cabinet that, freedom of information now reveals, conspired against any wording for the care referendum that might have granted disabled people and carers greater rights and cost the State more money. He also sat at Cabinet while the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, introduced the Green Paper without any consultation with disabled persons' organisations. It is the members of the disabled community, not the Taoiseach, who are responsible for the change of policy, and I offer each and every one of them who raised their voices my sincere congratulations.

In 2021, the Department of Social Protection commissioned an Indecon report on the costs of disability in Ireland. The report found that the average costs were somewhere between €8,700 and €12,300. The cost of living has increased since then, and then some. The equivalent figures for today are between €10,000 and €14,000, including the cost of heating when you are confined to your house for most of the day and the cost of taxis when you need them to venture out, and that is before you even get to the cost of making modifications to your own home. The cost of disability is a major contributing factor leading to one in two disabled people living in deprivation, one in five living in consistent poverty and the rate of homelessness being twice what it is for the rest of the population.

What needs to be done to tackle this? We need to provide all persons with a disability with a universal payment, scrap the means test for receiving that payment, set it at a level that fully covers the cost of disability and allow disabled people to work and earn money without it affecting that payment. Disability activists are gathering at the gates of Leinster House at 11 a.m. to promote these demands, and I hope members of the media listening in to the debate will cover their action.

The motion states, “the State has failed children with disabilities and their parents/guardians, and 8,893 children are now overdue for assessment of need, with 6,963 waiting more than three months, and 17,157 waiting for first contact with a children's disability network team, with a waiting list for treatment of over 110,000”. How much human misery is stored up within those statistics? Of course, that is without mentioning the large number of parents of children with autism who still do not know whether their child will have a place in school this September.

On 7 May, the High Court will hear a case taken by two Cork parents on behalf of their daughter, who has been diagnosed with intellectual disability, autism and epilepsy. Her assessment of need outlines the need for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and psychological therapy, but not one of these services has ever been provided by the State. The parents are making the case the State should be compelled to provide those services. The State is planning to fight the case and spend nearly €30,000 in doing so. Senator Clonan's Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023 also aims to compel the State to provide services identified by an assessment of need. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government will support or oppose that proposed legislation?

I will close my opening remarks by reading into the record the words of a number of young disability activists. Áine O'Hara of Chronic Collective said yesterday that disabled people are forced to fundraise for medical treatment, forced to leave the country for surgery, forced to depend on family and friends for vital care due to severely lacking access to personal assistant hours, and forced into poverty. She said Ireland is not an equitable country for disabled people and that we need to change this. She said we need a social change, a switch from viewing disabled people as a burden, issue or problem into seeing them as the vibrant, knowledgeable and valuable communities they are. Kayleigh McKevitt of Access for All said disabled people still have a long way to go and she hopes they get there before the next generation of young disabled people have to fight. The mental health activist Blezzing Dada identified individualism, ableism, capitalism and fascism as obstacles on the road to disability justice, stating:

Ableism convinced you that your health is untouchable if you do x, y & z. Capitalism convinced you to return to “normal” so the rich can continue to profit off bad health.

It is interesting that all these young disabled activists, fresh from defeating the Government on two fronts, identified the need for radical social change from below. I fully concur with this sentiment. The ableist, capitalist system, which puts profit before people and devalues disabled people because it feels as though it is less likely to squeeze profit from them, is at the root of the problems here. We need a society that will, in the words of Karl Marx, allow each to contribute to society according to their ability and to take from society according to their needs, that is, a truly human and genuinely democratic and socialist society.

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