Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am tempted to talk about child school places, but I want to talk about adult disabled people because it has been almost one year since the care referendum this Government lost because disabled people got organised online and actively and defeated the care referendum whether we like it or not. They then went on to defeat the Green Paper which was another Thatcherite plan of the previous Government to force people into work. Can the Minister of State name anything that has been positive for disabled people that happened in the past year since they sent that message to the rest of society about their plight?

I do not have much time. This is likely to be the worst country in Europe to be a disabled person. Disabled people are twice as likely to be homeless, twice as likely to leave school early and very likely to be unemployed because of our very high unemployment rate. Something disabled people discovered during the pandemic was that an able-bodied working person was thought to need €350 per week to live. That was the pandemic payment. Yet, disabled people were getting and still get €240 per week. Actually people who are disabled need much more money because of all the additional costs in their lives, such as transport, heating and many other things.

Will the Government please do something about the housing situation for disabled people as well? I have had to help to pay for occupational therapy assessments to be done to help people to get onto the housing waiting lists. That is illegal. Councils should be doing that. Laws are being broken continually when it comes to people who have a disability. Will the Government learn the lesson from last year and do something for disabled people?

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