Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that there is a major emphasis on disability, the establishment of the Cabinet committee and so on. I ask the Minister to forgive my frustration, which arises because the Indecon report was only one in a long series of reports over decades. I have an interest in looking at reports and tracing how we got to the current point. We have had a number of reports over decades. Twenty years ago, there was an Indecon report produced for the National Disability Authority. At that stage, the additional cost of disability was estimated at €143 per week. In 2015, we had the Cullinan and Lyons report. Then, in 2021, we had another Indecon report. As I said, we are talking about decades of reports. Now, in 2024, we still have not implemented the major recommendations in the Indecon report of 2021.

I acknowledge there is a range of disability and all of that. However, we have done nothing to progress the disability payment that has been asked for by so many organisations within a rights-based context. We have since had a Green Paper. I welcome that it has been scrapped. It caused great upset and distress. We must address the recommendations in the Indecon report, which were made more than three years ago.

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