The Government must acknowledge the harsh truth that people with disabilities and their families continue to experience high levels of poverty and social exclusion, a fact which has been verified by the Economic and Social Research Institute. We are told the Government must prioritise in the area of social inclusion and every other area because of the deteriorating state of the public finances. Why could it not have provided for and discriminated positively in favour of the disadvantaged when we had a budget surplus of more than €5 billion last year?