Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome our visitors who are here for this debate and thank them for attending. I thank Senator Clonan for raising this very important issue. I think everybody in this House agrees that we need to do more to support people with disabilities. At the outset, I will say that I do not see recipients or claimants, I see people. It has been well documented that the cost of disability needs to be addressed. Ireland’s employment rate for people with disabilities is below the EU average. So, the question is, do we keep doing what we are doing and expect a different result or do we actually try to improve the system for people with disabilities? There has been no reform to disability payments for decades. We have a wide range of different schemes, including the disability allowance, the invalidity pension, the blind pension and the partial capacity benefit. There are different rules and regulations across those schemes and there can often be anomalies. What the Government wants to do and what I want to do is to simplify the system and make it work better for people with disabilities. That is the genuine aim here, nothing else.

The Green Paper that we have published is about recognising that not all disabilities are the same and some people may need extra help. I want to be very clear today. There is no question of anybody having their payment reduced. My objective here is to increase payments, not reduce them.