Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to address the issues raised in the motion tabled by Deputy Tully. The Government will not oppose the motion but we will use our time to demonstrate what we have delivered in the sphere of disability over the past four years.

The motion touches on a wide range of issues, spanning the remit of several different Departments, including my own. I will provide some details of measures across other Departments highlighted in the motion, insofar as time will allow. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will comment in more detail on progress in specialist disability services but it is important to note the overall budgetary allocation for disability services in 2025. The Government is committed to expanding supports for people with disabilities and developing a more integrated and person-centred policy approach across all public services. This commitment is reflected in the budget for disabilities services, which has increased by €1.2 billion over the past four years. In 2020 when we took office, the budget was €2.1 billion. This year, following the increase, it will be €3.2 billion. This provision recognises the very significant existing challenges in the sector, about which Deputies have spoken, but funding is also provided to build on service expansion to date in children’s services, day services, respite and residential services, personal assistance hours, and other supports to assist people to continue living independently in their own homes.

Turning to the optional protocol, which is referenced in Deputy Tully's motion, as Deputies will be aware, last Tuesday, 8 October marked a milestone for Ireland when the Government agreed to accede to the optional protocol to the UNCRPD. The ratification of the optional protocol is a key priority in the programme for Government and has been a core objective for myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. This decision by Government demonstrates Ireland’s commitment to the continued and progressive realisation of the rights and obligations enshrined in the convention. It also conveys an important message regarding the value the State places on advancing the rights of persons with disabilities. Accession to the optional protocol will enable people who feel that their rights under the convention have been breached to submit a communication to the UN's disability committee. The UN committee will then assess communications against the its own admissibility criteria. If admissible, the committee will then assess the merit of a communication and if a breach of rights has occurred, it will issue recommendations to the State for remedies. The protocol acts as an important accountability mechanism for the State and as such, strengthens Ireland's commitment to upholding the rights of persons with disabilities and highlights the value that we, as a Government, place on ensuring that we are held to account in adhering to our obligations under the convention. The Minister of State and I have long prioritised this particular measure and earlier this year I formed an interdepartmental group to hasten the work on ratification. The completion by the interdepartmental group of its work enabled the Government to take a decision last week to accede to the optional protocol. Following the decision, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs will sign an instrument of accession on behalf of the Government to be deposited with the Secretary General of the UN in the next number of weeks. The protocol will enter into force in Ireland 30 days after that document is deposited.

The programme for Government reaffirmed our commitment to the rights articulated within the UNCRPD, setting out a further commitment for the development of an implementation plan for the convention. This commitment will be delivered in the form of the next national disability strategy, which will provide a blueprint for the further realisation of the UNCRPD and embed a dynamic framework approach to disability policy across government. Consultation and codesign with disabled persons and their representative organisations have been at the centre of the development of this new strategy. This means there will be lasting and agile structure for whole-of-government engagement on disability issues, to problem solve issues and drive progress while always working in collaboration with stakeholders. A robust and extensive public consultation process for the strategy has concluded. There were 34 focus groups, a number of which the Minister of State and I attended. There were also 18 interviews, 500 responses to a national survey and five town hall events, both in-person and online. This is in addition to targeted and ongoing engagement with disabled persons organisations. Key to these discussions has been the role of stakeholders in the design and implementation not only of this strategy, but of national policy more broadly. We are committed to ensuring that DPOs, in particular, are supported to engage in effective advocacy. This will support the disabled community to have their voices heard effectively in the public sphere and, crucially, bolster our ability to make better policy that is reflective of their needs and lived experience.

The Government acknowledges that effective contributions to the policy making and implementation process requires adequate resources. Capacity building and funding for DPOs is being actively considered as part of the development of the strategy. The new national disability strategy will represent a paradigm shift in how disability policy is managed across government. There will be robust structures for stakeholder involvement in design and implementation but the strategy is also going to embed supports across government, at national and local level, for the collaborative design and implementation of national disability policy. At a national level, the new strategy will implement structures for co-ordination and co-operation across government under six key themes: inclusive learning and education; employment; independent living; active participation in society; well-being and health; and transport and mobility.

The Opposition motion highlights broader matters relating to income supports and the cost of disability. Supports and services for people with disability are continually reviewed by the Department of Social Protection. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has introduced significant changes in this year's budget, which she spoke about in the debate that just concluded. The maximum personal rate of disability payments was increased by €12 per week, with proportionate increases for qualified adults. Over the past four budgets, the personal rate for disability payments has risen by €41 per week. In 2023, almost 223,000 people with disabilities received an income support at a cost of €2.8 billion. This has increased by almost €1.66 billion and almost 61,000 recipients over the past ten years. In 2021, the Minister published a report on the cost of disability in Ireland that detailed the significant additional costs faced by individuals with disabilities over and above those faced by the general population. The programme for Government commits to using this research into the cost of disability to inform the direction of future policy. My Department is continuing to engage with the Department of Social Protection on how this is to be progressed further.

One issue of particular concern is the low employment rate among persons with a disability. This is a key focus of the new national disability strategy, which will build on the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities. The wage subsidy scheme is a key employment support. It incentivises employers to hire people with disabilities by offering employers subsidies ranging from €6.30 per hour to €9.45 per hour according to the number of employees. In September of this year, the Department of Social Protection published a review of the wage subsidy scheme, which makes six key recommendations on how to improve and expand the scheme. In budget 2024, the Minister for Social Protection allocated an additional €3.7 million to implement the recommendations of this review. The revised scheme is expected to be implemented from January 2025.

Deputy Conway Walsh referred to section 38 and 39 organisations and the Government has worked hard to achieve a just outcome for workers in community and voluntary organisations delivering disability services on behalf of the State. An agreement was reached last October at the WRC resulting in funding being provided for an 8% increase in pay for workers in community and voluntary organisations funded under a section 39 agreement. Through a subsequent WRC process the Department has made a further offer of an additional 8.5% for pay for these workers. The combination of these two pay offers would represent a minimum of 16.5% in pay increases over three and a half years. Unfortunately, up to this point the second of those pay agreements has not been accepted by the unions - they have disengaged from the process. However, I remain optimistic that we can succeed in getting an agreement that properly rewards the women and men who work in section 39 and indeed section 56 organisations.

I assure the House that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I remain committed to the improvement of specialist disability services throughout the country. I am very much aware of how important these services are for people with disabilities, for their families and for their wider support network. The Government will continue to develop services and supports for people with disabilities. We will continue to ensure that these are aligned with the principles set out in the UN CRPD. I believe this commitment was demonstrated most recently by our decision last week to accede to the optional protocol.

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