Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

That Bill will come to the House later this week. I hope it is the bridgehead of a twin-track approach to this issue which would, on the one hand, facilitate those with a capacity to work but would retain payments proportionate to their needs and, on the other, would then allow us, by differentiating between the levels of capacity, to pay more money to those who have the type of disability that would make a person incapable of working or aspiring to work. If we could do that, many things would change. However, as the group comprises 150,000 people, it is too amorphous or heterogenous for this to be done in that way.

Senator McFadden raised the issue of blind pensioners. For obvious reasons, this includes partially sighted people and those with no sight. For family reasons, I have a fair bit of experience of at least one partially sighted person. If I am fair about it, the reality is that somebody with partial sight might not be as disabled as a severely disabled person who has multiple disabilities and cannot walk or talk and so on - I know people in that position. Therefore, I cannot understand how I could pick out one group of people who, I grant, are disabled but who are not necessarily the most disabled people, depending on the level of sight they have. I cannot say that this small group of 1,400 was exempt but the group of 150,000, which included some people with and some without severe disabilities, was not. I could not ignore the spectrum of those who would be judged either more disabled or not so bad, if disability could be graded. This is where my difficulty lay.

When I considered this issue, I decided invalidity allowance, disability allowance and blind pension would have to be in or out together - either all in or all out. If one stands back, one would have to take it as all in or all out, or one would not be fair. The more Members reflect on this and think of all the people they know with disabilities, including those with the most severe disabilities, the more they will realise such people are not necessarily partially sighted. This is the problem. It is not easy but we should at least be fair about the challenge.