Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)

I commend Sinn Féin on its motion.

As the Minister knows, it has been long recognised that having a disability comes with significant additional financial pressures that include the cost of therapy, equipment and transport. Despite repeated calls from advocacy groups over many years to introduce a cost-of-disability payment, the Minister’s Government decided not to implement this measure in budget 2026. The gulf between Government rhetoric and action on disability remains immense and shows little sign of closing as things stand. The Social Democrats proposed a cost-of-disability payment in our alternative budget that would have amounted to €1,040 per year and an additional €780 in disability allowance over a year. The Government has increased disability allowance annually by €520, meaning disabled people are €1,300 worse off per year under this budget than they would have been under our proposals. A joint study earlier this year from the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, entitled "Adjusting Estimates of Poverty for the Cost of Disability", showed that the additional costs faced by disabled people are now estimated to be between 52% and 59% of disposable income. For those with more severe difficulties this rises to as much as 83% to 93%, which is staggering. These costs can involve a range of issues, including personal assistants and care hours as well as equipment, transport and medicines. The report also highlighted how traditional poverty measurements underestimate the level of deprivation experienced by people with disabilities because they fail to account for these unavoidable additional costs. This is a very stark reflection of how far behind the country is in providing meaningful support to disabled people.

The introduction of a non-means-tested cost-of-disability payment was proposed as far back as 2006 by the National Disability Authority, which undertook detailed costings and research at that time. This was updated in the comprehensive Indecon report of 2021. Both clearly demonstrated the significant extra costs involved in living with a disability. The findings have been consistently echoed by the Disability Federation of Ireland, which has long advocated for this cost-of-disability payment and has argued that if enacted, it would represent a structural long-term recognition of the cost of disability. It comes down to a basic matter of fairness, equality and dignity for people with disabilities. It is injurious to people with disabilities that they have been put to the back of the queue for financial support once again after being left with a significant reduction in income after the stripping away of one-off measures introduced to buy the last election. The budget was described by the Disability Federation of Ireland as "a betrayal of disabled people". The vague reference in the budget to consultation on a cost-of-disability payment that might be introduced at some point adds further insult to injury.

Changes to the wage subsidy scheme are a further disappointment from the budget. The scheme is a financial support to employers who recruit people with disabilities. An increase of €1.20 per hour from €6.30 to €7.50 only applies to employers with a maximum of two disabled employees, so any other employer taking on more than two receives the wage subsidy scheme on a sliding scale, meaning for the most part that the more people with disabilities employed, the less the increase. As such, Rehab Group, which is one of the largest non-governmental employers of people with disabilities, will receive just an extra 55 cent from last year’s rate per hour. This seems grossly unfair and clearly penalises employers seeking to take more people with disabilities into the workforce.

The budget was the Government’s opportunity to match its nice words on valuing carers with concrete actions that would both recognise the indispensable nature of carers’ work and also the degree to which the work of carers saves the State billions. It would have been an opportunity to meaningfully acknowledge carers’ work as work as opposed to some form of optional charity. As with so many of the basics of a just society, the Government decided to tinker around the edges of the means test for carers’ allowance rather than abolish it once and for all. This leaves many carers who have had to leave their careers to look after a family member who requires full-time care and support without this modest payment to provide them with a modicum of financial security because their savings or their spouse’s income pushes them slightly over the threshold. For carers who are locked out of this basic financial support, applying for the carer’s allowance and being rejected is a draining, grinding and alienating process. The Government and the Minister talked about being unable to abolish the means test in 2026 almost with a sense of inevitability and implied that proposals by the Social Democrats to do so were naïve or idealistic, but dragging out this decision is not inevitable. It is a political choice. The Government could have asked banks which are highly profitable and were bailed out by the State during the financial crash to pay a bit more or it could continue to lean on carers for the work they are not thanked for, intruding into their finances and devaluing their contribution to society. Unfortunately the Minister’s Government chose the latter and in so doing it again underestimated carers and people with disabilities not just for their qualities and contribution to society, but also their growing political power as a movement that will bring about electoral change very soon.

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