John Kelly (Labour)

How much time do I have? Five minutes? Then we will take three minutes and two minutes.

I thought it was interesting, when Senator O'Brien was speaking, that it appeared to be such a struggle for him to find enough fault with the budget that he spent the first few minutes of his eight cracking a few jokes. He had little to say.

We are all concerned about the disability allowance. It is important to point out, however, that this applies only to new applicants and not to existing recipients of the allowance. People who are afraid of what they have heard do not realise this is the case. With regard to the proposal for the future of the allowance, I do see merit, to a degree, in considering the situation of 16 to 18 year olds. In my own experience through the years, I have seen 16 year old students with mild to moderate disabilities receiving disability allowance in fifth and sixth year of secondary school and bringing the allowance with them when they move on to third level. In a way, this is an anomaly, because the allowance is supposed to be paid to people who have no long-term prospect of ever getting a job, yet we see these 16 to 18 year olds going on to third level education, qualifying and securing employment. This must be examined.

However, I do have a problem with the blunt-instrument way of dealing with severely disabled people who will never be in that position. The Minister of State should say this to his Cabinet colleagues. Much anger has been expressed about this in the Seanad and other forums today. In cases in which a person will not ever have the prospect of a job or training, maybe the full disability allowance should be considered.