Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Recently, I met the Disability Federation of Ireland and the Irish Wheelchair Association following the decision by the Minister for Social Protection to end the Green Paper process and to carry out further consultation. We are heading into a budget. The ESRI has stated on the last two occasions that we have kept ahead of inflation by combining core increases and once-off payments but we will get to a point by which we phase out once-off payments. The disability support grant, which was introduced in 2022, goes, in some way, to try to address the real cost of disability. I urge the Minister, Deputy McEntee, the Minister for Social Protection and all of the Government to consider what can be done to retain that disability support grant payment in advance of a full consultation and decisions around the future of a Green Paper process. It something which was welcomed in 2022 as an indication of the real cost of disability. I ask the Government to continue to support it.

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