Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

Yesterday’s budget was a deep disappointment. There is real anger out there. The Government made choices in this budget that are impacting really adversely on so many people. As my colleague Deputy Nash said in what I think was the line of the day yesterday, this is a budget that is giving handouts to burger barons and big builders, but broken promises for everyone else.

People see that, and this is raw for students facing a €500 fee increase, parents seeing no reduction in childcare costs - when they can get a childcare place - families struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and people unable to find a home of their own and, of course, nothing for disabled people or carers. This was derisory for those people.

Here in Ireland, employment rates for people with disabilities are 20% lower than the European average. One in five people unable to work due to disability lives in consistent poverty. Our social protection system has to intervene. There was great hope of significant intervention in this budget. Supports like the disability allowance and disability support grant are essentials, covering costs in heating, food, medication and rent, funding day-to-day expenses of disabled people and carers in an inaccessible society. The removal of one-off support payments in this budget is expected to cost disabled people €1,400 per year. That is not loose change; it is money that keeps the lights on.

By contrast, Labour in government would introduce a cost of disability payment, starting at €25 per week, to help to meaningfully offset the costs of disability. Our Labour alternative budget published last week proposed a 50% increase in housing adaptation grant funding to ease the burden of making a home accessible. The Government's budget could have taken steps like these to provide transformations in the lives of disabled people, but it left them out. It failed to introduce a cost of disability payment, ended one-off payments and introduced nothing new.

In respect of carers, we do welcome the increase in the carer’s allowance disregard. Indeed, that is something that we and in particular my colleague, Deputy Wall, have been campaigning on for years. However, what is missing is progress on abolishing the mean-spirited means test. It is a broken promise. Where is the pathway to abolition that was committed to in the programme for Government less than a year ago? A €10 rise in core payments is derisory. It amounts to an hourly increase of less than six cent for someone providing 24-hour care and yet more than two thirds of caring families are struggling to cover the cost of food and energy in a cost-of-living crisis. The Taoiseach has failed disabled people and carers in this budget and that is really evident. It is a very significant broken promise among a litany of broken promises in a budget that is a do-nothing budget for far too many.

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