Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “That Seanad Éireann:” and substitute the following: “notes that:

- the Minister for Social Protection has published a Green Paper on Reform of Disability Income Support payments for public consultation to provide an opportunity for disabled people and disabled people’s representative organisations an opportunity to input to the shape of future reforms to welfare payments for people with disabilities;

- the Green Paper is a consultation paper only that outlines one possible approach to achieving the aim of higher payments and better employment supports;

- the proposals contained in it are intended to inform discussion, debate and to seek ideas for improved or alternative proposals to address the issues, and that the feedback received will help to design and develop a new model of income supports for the Government to consider;

- under the proposals in the Green Paper, nobody who is currently in receipt of long-term disability payments will be moved off a disability payment;

- there is no proposal to reduce anybody’s payment under the Green Paper; rather it proposes significant increases in payments for those with the greatest need;

- the Green Paper’s objective is to insulate disabled people who cannot work from poverty, by providing them with higher weekly payment rates and to provide more targeted employment supports for those who want to work;

- the Cost of Disability Report, published in 2021, following extensive consultation with disabled people, recommended that the levels of disability payments and allowances should be changed to reflect the very different costs of disability by severity and type of disability;

- the Cost of Disability Report also recommended that a high priority should be given to facilitate an increase in employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities;

- the proposals in the Green Paper will assist Ireland in meeting the requirements of Articles 27 and 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding access to employment and an adequate standard of living;

further notes:

- the Government has taken, and is taking, a number of measures to improve outcomes for people with disabilities, including through:

- paying a Disability Support Grant in 2022 and again this year;

- increasing the basic rate of payment from €203 when it took office to €232 per week in Budget 2024;

- introducing a fast-track return to disability payments for people with a disability who take up but cannot sustain employment;

- introducing changes to allow people who leave a disability payment to retain their medical card;

- increasing the income disregards for Disability Allowance payments;

- expanding and increasing the funding of the EmployAbility Service;

- introducing an early engagement model to support people with disabilities access training and employment;

- increasing the period of time for which Domiciliary Care Allowance is paid while a child is in hospital or post-bereavement;

- increasing the Carer’s Support Grant;

- increasing income thresholds for Carer’s Allowance recipients;

- funding and publishing research on costs of disability;

- reducing waiting days for Illness Benefit payments and introducing statutory sick pay;

- increasing payments under the Treatment Benefits scheme for access to hearing aids;

- notwithstanding these significant supports, disabled people continue to experience higher poverty risks, high costs of disability and low employment participation and it is clear that more needs to be done.”

The Minister is very welcome to the House. I am happy to be here to discuss the Green Paper on disability reform. It is a good opportunity for a discussion and I thank Independent Senators for placing it on the Order Paper because it is a discussion that is long overdue.

The Minister has come before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters on several occasions. We have had discussions offline about how social welfare payments and supports create barriers to participation and a situation whereby people with disabilities who have an ambition to achieve their own goals or dreams are prevented from doing so because of the way supports have been designed and developed over decades.

The Green Paper acknowledges how inconsistencies and anomalies have grown up within the system of supports, something that must be addressed.We must have a very clear proposal for the restructuring of long-term disability payments. The system must be simplified. It has to take into account the concerns of so many people across all aisles of the House and all organisations. Senator Clonan spoke on this, but it is lost in the proposal by the Independent Senators, which is that this Green Paper is a proposal on how to improve something or solve a problem. It does not claim to be the best way or the only way. Its purpose is to encourage thinking and discussion and to prompt suggestions. It is, therefore, a useful tool in public consultation as it provides focus and ensures that everyone is working with the same information. On page 1, it asks people:

therefore, not to take the key features proposed in this document as definite. They are proposals designed to help interested parties think about what mightwork [not what will work], and to encourage a focused debate around key design issues to reform disability payments in Ireland.

It is very important to highlight this.

Senator Clonan and I speak together on a lot of issues around how the State puts up barriers for people to work. We have the highest unemployment rates for people with disabilities. We speak about full employment in our economy but in fact we do not have full employment because people with disabilities are unemployed when they are well able to work. As the Green Paper acknowledges, those inconsistencies and anomalies stop people and put up unnecessary barriers to people participating in society. This is not only the situation with social welfare, as the Minister is well aware. This goes across every single Department, be it in transport or in health where people are not getting the therapies. It is very important to highlight that.

We know that people with disabilities have less money than other people and that they have higher costs of living. The Indecon report highlights this. My criticism to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is that we are only getting to this point now even though the Indecon report is a couple of years old. We have been pushing and asking the Department for movement on the Indecon report. This is a movement on that. We must look at how we can support people getting into work and getting to live and enjoy this gorgeous country of ours because there are so many barriers, however.

Not everyone will be able to work and work is not the be all and end all. While the Green Paper does not suggest that, if I was to rewrite the motion or counter-motion, I would try to amend the motion by asking how we could improve the public consultation process. Perhaps this is a criticism I have on the Independent Senator's motion. There is not one note on how to improve the public consultation process. There is not one note on how to ensure the public consultation is accessible. Perhaps the length of the consultation could be improved. I would want the DPOs to be supported to engage. We are aware that many of the disabled persons organisations are not funded. They are volunteer led and they do not have the cash to be able to engage in a process. We need to encourage people with a disability to engage in this process. It is only when they engage with this Green Paper that it will change to a White Paper policy document and be the better for it. We can see there is an absolutely medicalised model in this report. We are talking about how fit somebody is to work. With regard to experts, as in people with disabilities engaging in this process, we can learn and the Department can change how this is framed and we can work to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

Today, I ask the Minister to improve the public consultation period. I believe the venues will be announced on 18 October. I ask the Minister that there are more venues, that people are supported to go to those venues, that we would make sure there is transport to those venues, that there is an Irish Sign Language facility at those venues, that people are encouraged and welcomed, and that they contact their local Oireachtas Members and public representatives to engage in this process. The invalidity pension has been around since the 1800s. It is a good day now that we are talking about improving the schemes. I thank the Minister for the opportunity to discuss this today.