Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

Absolutely, it is. Under the national human rights strategy for disabled people, one of our jobs is to lead a strategic focus network from within the Department. The network will include people with disabilities and their advocates. I have asked the officials to expedite the establishment of that group, and one of the areas we will be looking at is the cost of disability payment. I intend to bring a proposal to the Government in the first half of 2026 concerning this payment. In the meantime, I am engaging with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and the Department of public expenditure around continuing to give support to disabled people in budget 2026 in terms of a recognition of the substantially higher costs that they face daily and weekly.

We had an engagement earlier with Deputy Quaide around the Indecon report and the ESRI report and the work of the network will involve going through those figures and ensuring we have full understanding within the Department and the Government of the full cost of disability, not just for those who have a disability, but also for their families and their communities.

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