Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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16. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment following on from the launch of the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, the means by which disability lead and associated grants are funded; the overall funding provided to such grants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52009/25]

Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Tá mé chun an cheist seo a chur ar son an Teachta Keira Keogh as Maigh Eo.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I welcome and support the publication of the new National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. The Department’s obligations, and those of bodies under its aegis, are contained under pillar 3 of the new strategy and include implementing Sport Ireland’s disability inclusion in sport statement and commitment to action, encouraging the production of accessible audiovisual content, embedding universal design and accessibility, addressing barriers, providing for an increased and richer participation of disabled audiences and creators in arts and cultural events nationwide, and enabling equal participation in the arts by disabled artists and arts workers.

The disability lead and associated grants are funded through the overall budgetary allocations that my Department provides to the various agencies and bodies under my remit. With regard to the overall funding provided to such grants, my Department provided funding of €1.868 million in 2024 to the Arts Council to support artists and persons with disabilities to access services. In addition, in 2024, €22.7 million in funding was provided to the Coimisiún na Mean Sound and Vision scheme for the production of audio and audiovisual content. To date in 2025, €13.4 million has been provided. A key objective of the scheme is to encourage inclusivity and accessibility, which is achieved through support for programmes with access services like subtitling, audio description and Irish sign language. With regard to sport, there are a range of funding supports for persons with disabilities. While some funding is direct, most of the funding is part of a wider programme of expenditure and is subject to annual budgetary adjustments.

To complement this strategy, I recently published an overview of supports provided by my Department to persons with disabilities and this is available on my Department’s website. This includes supports across the range of Government functions. I am committed to the delivery of goals and actions agreed by my Department for the culture, communications and sport sectors, as outlined in the strategy, and my officials will continue to engage with the Department of Children, Disability and Equality over the lifetime of the strategy.

Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I particularly welcome what the Minister said about liaising with other Departments. The cross-departmental nature of this funding is hugely important. It is not just the Minister's Department but also the Department of Health, the Department of Transport and the Department of Children, Disability and Equality that need to come together to make sure this funding is effective in how it relates to people with disabilities.

I want to specifically address the accessibility retrofit programme for public transport. We opened a new DART station in my constituency, in Woodbrook, with fully accessible platforms, yet the fully accessible trains that will allow wheelchair users, for example, to get onto them will not come for two years. Those trains are important for people like artists, as the Minister mentioned, to get to different venues and places where they are going to work. That has to be part of the scheme as well. The cross-departmental element is crucial to make sure it is effective and gives people with disabilities what they need.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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While I might not be able to give the Deputy an answer with regard to trains, I certainly hope my colleague the Minister for Transport will. Generally with regard to venue accessibility, the Deputy makes a very good point. As somebody who has photosensitivity myself and is precluded from going into a lot of different places because of lighting schemes and the like, I know unfortunately what it is like to have a disability that precludes me from doing things that some people take for granted and just get on with. It can be very debilitating, there is no doubt about it. It means that participating in cultural activities which I would love to be in a position to do, and which I was criticised by The Irish Times for not being able to do - thanks, The Irish Times - is something I am acutely aware of. In the next round of grants I will be making available, particularly the first round of arts capital grants, I will have a particular emphasis on the issue of disability access, and also in the area of sports capital, which we have done for the last number of years. We have been very keen to bring inclusivity around the area of disability to the fore and will be continuing with that.

Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the work that is being done. It is hugely positive and benefits us all, albeit many of us indirectly. One of the issues with grants, particularly where they are means-tested, is that when they work and the person who is a recipient of that grant makes more money or has more resources available to him or her, they then fall outside the criteria if it is means-tested. This applies across the board in relation to grants for people with disabilities. The reality is that even if they have more money or resources available to them, they still have the same disability, challenge and mountain to overcome. It is counterproductive to have a situation where a means-tested grant is taken away from somebody who has achieved some success in relation to the very challenges they are trying to overcome.

I hope the Minister takes that into account in the way the scheme will operate from here.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I certainly will. The point was raised earlier and we had a good discussion on the basic income for the arts. The Deputy will be as familiar with this as myself but one of the groups of people who are particularly hardest hit are disabled artists. We want to make sure that any replacement we bring to the scheme, which is currently on a pilot basis, does take into account - if we get the resources from the budget next week - the severe impediments and severe hurdles that people with disabilities have on top of being an artist. Having a disability and being an artist in this country at the moment is quite difficult and we want to try to be able to recognise that.