Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

We are not planning on opening the budget process again because we are delivering one annual budget. Within the context of the budget we delivered, we have delivered a progressive budget. The budget documentation shows it is a progressive budget, helping those most in need over those who have the most. That is the budget we ran. That is the budgetary process and we will continue to run progressive budgets. In the context of that we have made a number of decisions to increase weekly supports to people with a disability and invest significantly in services for people with a disability. Work is under way on the development of a cost-of-disability payment and we want to work in partnership with representative groups and political parties on getting that right.

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