Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the U-turn, flip-flop or withdrawal or whatever word the Minister wants to use with regard to this Green Paper. First and foremost, the biggest congratulations must go to the disability activists who, from the very start, feared the direction of this Green Paper. For me, it really brought up the old saying, "When England sneezes, Ireland catches a cold." With this, we can say that people with disabilities were rightly worried that this English Tory legislation would be implemented by this Government. While the current system for disability is not fit for purpose and reform is badly needed, some of the proposals in the Green Paper were not the answer.

For many people with disabilities, the core issue is that they want to work. It is a much bigger issue than just income. I met a young woman last week while I was canvassing. I have known her for many years. She was very distressed and deeply sad that she was stuck in her home. She wanted to work and put all the things that she had learned and all the studies and courses she had participated in into practice. It was very upsetting to take that time to sit down and talk to her because she saw no hope from all the work that she had done. Employment of people with disabilities opens social possibilities and increases happiness. It has significant mental health benefits. Employers' attitudes need to change. The barriers in place need to be removed and brought down.

We need to start developing a cost-of-living payment. We all remember during Covid the initial shock of most working people when their Covid payment was announced, which led to an immediate flip-flop by the Government to increase it to €350 per week. Many people with disabilities are constantly living in poverty.

We welcome some of the more positive aspects of the paper. Some work can be done to progress them, including the proposals to increase disability payments.

Another young woman in my constituency is in college and is a disability campaigner. She just posted on her Facebook page that it is a victory that the Green Paper has been scrapped. That was the feeling of most people in that sector and of people with disabilities. We now need to see the conversation move to the cost of disability and delivering a cost of disability payment.

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