Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment.

I thank Senator Clonan for absolutely focusing a light on the future of people with disabilities in this country, and focusing it onto something that is often talked about but rarely acted on. The Minister’s commitment to people with disabilities is unquestionable. I know this myself as a person with a disability. Whenever I have gone to the Minister on issues, not only has she taken them seriously, she has acted on them. That was very evident when a young person - I believe in Mayo - was accepted into a PhD programme and was on the verge of losing the disability payment allowance. The Minister dealt with it and dealt with it swiftly. That person has since had the opportunity to continue in higher education. This is the type of action that has been the hallmark of her Ministry since the Minister took over the Department of Social Protection in providing practical and no-nonsense support, and in dealing with officials in a no-nonsense way.

I have thanked the Minister previously, and I thank her again, for extending the free travel scheme to people who have epilepsy and who could not drive because they were medically not allowed to drive, and for extending it to people who because of eyesight difficulties are not allowed to drive but who may not be under the definition of the legally blind. There are people who have various different eyesight conditions who were not allowed to drive and were medically prevented from driving. They now can get a free travel pass. This is what I call access to transport. This creates and helps to build a level playing pitch.

The Green Paper is no doubt, an imperfect document but at least it is a document. One must start somewhere. One cannot start with a blank page. There has to be ink on a page. While there are elements of the Green Paper I would not agree with, and elements of the language that perhaps could have been done in a more sensitive way, it is a document and is something to work on.

For many years, I have believed that for a young person who is blind at the age of 16 or 18 years of age, getting a blind pension is inappropriate terminology. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland is rebranding and changing its name to call itself Vision Ireland because it is a more positive and more energetic title. The blind pension deems somebody incapable of working and pensions them off from the age of 16. At the time, my father would not allow me to apply for the blind pension because of the connotations associated with it when I was that age.

I am glad we are having the discussion. I believe that on 9 November, an event in Dublin Castle will be open to the public to develop the discussions on this. I fully support colleagues when they say that there should be more. We should have a situation where any person with a disability, any family member of somebody with a disability, any organisation representing people with disabilities or any member of the public who just has an interest in the cause and the rights of people with disabilities, would be able to input into this initial discussion document.

As I said earlier, there is no doubt but that the Green Paper is an imperfect document but we have to start somewhere. I think back to 2011, when the Minister and I were elected to the Houses of the Oireachtas initially. We were coming to the lobbies of these Chambers to vote for disability cuts because we had to in order to save the economy. We were in a situation where Ireland was well and truly broke with not a penny. We had to rebuild our society and our economy. We did that. At least we are now in a situation where we can give payments to people. Currently, 2.6 million people are employed in the State, yet the employment rates for persons with disabilities is not at all where it should be.Of the legally blind people in the country 83% benefit from payments because they cannot get employment. It is something that troubles me greatly because society is losing a large amount of talent. All we need is to ensure that the workplace is a level playing field and that the proper equipment is there. Sometimes this can be a simple magnifier or another piece of equipment. It may cost a few thousand euro but it would create a job for somebody.

We have a lot of work to do to support businesses, particularly in the private sector, to take a chance on employing people with disabilities. To facilitate businesses taking a chance there need to be financial incentives. At the end of the day private companies have to make money. A practical way for the State to help to improve the employment prospects of people with disabilities would be to create an appropriate grant system to encourage small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations to employ people. There are great companies in the country that go above and beyond when it comes to employing persons with disabilities. There are also some great State agencies in this regard. There are other State agencies that have a terrible record. The ESB, or Electric Ireland as it is called now, has a fantastic record. I could name many others that have an appalling record. The discussion on the future of persons with disabilities in this country needs to happen. We would get more positives than negatives from it.

I have said previously, and it has been acknowledged by many people, that in 2017 when he became Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar made a commitment to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He honoured this commitment. I have no doubt that the commitment that will be made when we finally get to a White Paper will be honoured also.