Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move:

“That Seanad Éireann:

acknowledges that:

-the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, and the inability to provide adequate care to people with disabilities, medical and mental health issues has led to a situation in which young people are emigrating for better educational and living opportunities;

-students’ unions across Ireland have referred to the student accommodation crisis as an ‘emergency’ and there have been reports of students being homeless, living in tents, sharing rooms with several people or having to couch-surf because they are unable to pay rent;

-while the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis affects everyone, it has a more significant impact on young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and people who are impaired by medical issues, disabilities or mental health issues; caregivers and young parents are also amongst those seriously affected;

notes that:

-the national average for rent is over €1,250 a month, while in Dublin it is over €1,750 and that the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis is getting worse as the rate of inflation is currently over 9 per cent;

-Ireland is being criticised internationally for its housing situation; the French Embassy recently advised all their citizens who move to Ireland they will be subject to significant difficulties, and multi-national corporations have also expressed concerns regarding the Irish housing crisis; this threatens foreign direct investment and potential sources of tax revenue;

- approximately 50 per cent of much needed non-consultant doctors are leaving the country, while 90 per cent of medical students are considering leaving the country; similarly, nearly 20,000 nurses left Ireland between 2010 and 2022; apart from demonstrating issues with the cost of living and working conditions, this also has an impact on the supports that can be provided to people with medical issues, disabilities, or mental health issues;

calls on the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to:

-liaise with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to devise and implement a strategy to address issues related to accommodation for young people and their families; this should include making use of vacant properties and providing social housing to those in need;

-liaise with the Minister for Health to devise and implement a strategy to ensure that adequate supports are provided to young people who have disabilities or are impaired by physical or mental health issues; and

-liaise with the Minister for Education and the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to devise and implement a strategy which will try to ensure that no student is unable to access certain educational opportunities due to their background or family’s circumstances."

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, for attending the House. The Independent Group decided to initiate a debate on the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on young persons. I will lead out the debate and my focus will be on the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on young persons and adults with disabilities. I can speak to that issue from my lived experience as a parent and carer of a young man of 20 years who is in second year at Dublin Business School, DBS, and how he is impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.

Europe is at war, as we are all painfully aware. This has provoked an energy crisis and brought with it the prospect of a tactical nuclear strike. Who knows? The cost-of-living crisis for persons with disabilities did not appear this winter as a consequence of the war in Ukraine and other complicating factors such as inflation. People with disabilities in Ireland live in a constant cost-of-living crisis. This has certainly impacted us and our son over the past ten years, in particular, after the financial crash and the imposition of austerity on the most vulnerable people in society.

Before I speak to the experience of people with disabilities, I will talk more generally about young people. I was surprised to be elected to the Seanad in March of this year. Prior to that, I had been lecturing for 22 years in Technological University Dublin and I had the privilege in that space to be dealing with young people every day. They were mainly postgraduate students and they numbered in the hundreds over that 22-year period. As far back as 2004, 2005 and 2006, it became clear that the postgraduate students sitting in front of me - most of whom were in their mid- to late- 20s and beginning to make important life decisions - did not have the modest ambition of owning their own home or having a secure and predictable place to live and within which to make all of their fundamental life decisions. This crisis did not begin in 2022 as a consequence of the influx of asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine but has been 20 years in the making. This year, I would not even ask students if they had the modest ambition of owning their own home because to do so would be unfair. They are a completely locked-out generation who are being denied one of the most basic fundamental human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, namely, the right to shelter and to have a roof over one’s head. That is the more general overview.

I also have young people in my family. My eldest son, Eoghan, has siblings. He is 21 years old and a final year student of law and business in UCD. He and his peer group are preparing to emigrate because they cannot anticipate or look forward to that rite of passage that other citizens across Europe have of leaving the family home, moving into rental accommodation, buying a small place of their own and just having the experience of being an adult. They have been infantilised by being forced to live at home with their parents and are considering emigrating for that reason. There is plenty of work here but, unfortunately, a young graduate or professional working here is looking at living with his or her parents. There is no prospect of renting or affording a mortgage. I saw in a report published in the newspapers during the week that wage someone would need to buy an average priced house in the Dublin region is in excess of €100,000. Again, this is a situation that has been 20 years in the making.

In respect of people with disabilities and additional needs, I will speak about the financial costs involved. The Department of Social Protection published a report recently which showed that households with a member who has a disability have extra costs per annum of between €9,000 and €16,000. That is before you even open the front door, turn a radiator on or try to put petrol into the car. That finds expression in so many different ways. People have to modify their vehicle and to avail of that, they have to buy a new car that is big enough. For example, in our case we have to accommodate a power chair with a hydraulic ramp to lift it. Straightaway, people have to spend €66,000 on a vehicle, which has to be provided upfront in order to avail of the grants. These are major challenges for any family. My family is very privileged and lucky to be able to manage this but people with family members who have a disability are constantly managing burdens within the family.

In other areas, Eoghan, as an adult, is in receipt of €208 per week under the disability allowance. This was increased in the budget by €12 to €220 per week. That is great but even if we multiply it out, it still does not meet the extra financial burden placed on a household in a given year.I will return to the human cost, not just the financial cost. Eoghan cannot leave the house to spend his disability allowance because he does not have a personal assistant. Ireland is one of the only countries in the EU that does not legally oblige the State to provide carers or care. We have no such legislation. We do not have a social care Act. We are an outlier in EU terms. Therefore, Eoghan cannot leave the house because he cannot leave the house on his own. He needs a personal assistant. It is not provided by the State. His €208 per week would probably buy him ten hours of assistance, and that would be reduced to six hours so that he would have a few euro to buy a cup of coffee or go into town and into McDonalds and have a hot chocolate. He is 20. He is stuck in the house. As was reported in the news recently, another young graduate spoke about how she is forced to live in her bedroom that has become the reign and compass of her world because Ireland is such a difficult place, notwithstanding the cost-of-living crisis, to have a disability in the first place.

The other thing Eoghan is denied is therapy. Again, unlike our other EU partners, we are the only country that is not legally obliged to provide medical therapies such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy to citizens. We are obliged to conduct an assessment of need. There are significant waiting lists but there is no legal obligation to then provide any of the therapies and services. For ten or 15 years, he has had none - zero. His deterioration is measured every year. These are the human costs of having a disability as a young person in Ireland.

We are told that he will get a once-off payment of €500 to offset the cost-of-living crisis. That would provide 22 hours of personal assistant care, if he could find a carer. Therefore, the cost to life of having a disability in Ireland, like the wider population of young people, and the aspiration to live independently and to have a home is even beyond imagination. For example, Eoghan is on the social housing list in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I am told the waiting list for an accessible dwelling is approximately 22 years, so he will be 42 before he could consider leaving our house. Throughout the summer recess, and in the first couple of months that I was in the Seanad, when he was not in college with a PA, Eoghan was at home in his bedroom - a 20-year old man looking out the window at the world going by because the State will not provide him with the personal assistant hours to get out and about. Even before the cost-of-living crisis he was isolated and excluded. This is compounded by the current issues. Even if he did get a house, an accessible dwelling, in 22 years, as things currently stand, he would not have a home care package or assistance hours to enable him to live independently there. I made inquiries of the HSE about this and, after a lengthy discussion, a social worker in the HSE with responsibility for disability services asked if he had siblings or a sister. I said "Yes". I was told that she will look after him. That was in 2020, just before Covid, not 1920 or 1820, and that was from a social worker. That is how dysfunctional and out of touch we are. On every measure, Ireland is the worst country in the European Union to have a disability.

A young lady, Evelyne Cynk, who is a German citizen, hopes to study in UCC to do a masters in creative writing. She has 24-hour PA supports and as soon as she was 18 she was put into her own accessible dwelling with all of the wraparound supports that she needs to live a young, self-fulfilled, self-actualised life as a German citizen. She came to visit me in Leinster House with her PAs. They travelled with Ryanair. She spoke to me about her aspirations to come here. It broke my heart. She said she would even think of becoming an Irish citizen. I had to say to her that if she becomes an Irish citizen, she will no longer be an autonomous, independent, assertive young lady, but like my son, she will become a prisoner in her own home and eventually she will end up in a nursing home because there will be no supports for her.

There is a cost-of-living crisis in focus right now with all of the complications of Ukraine, but this is not something that is new to our community, and this is not something that has happened overnight as a consequence of a peak in energy prices or an influx of refugees. This is something that has been growing and evolving and we must and can do better.