Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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1828. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of introducing a weekly €20 "cost of disability" payment to those under 18 years of age and over 18 years of age with a disability; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37552/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The introduction of a “cost of disability” payment would be a major undertaking requiring clear definitions of qualifying conditions and research into the prevalence of these conditions leading to estimates of the numbers of persons who would potentially qualify. It is likely that it would also require significant administrative spending in establishing the information technology and other systems that would be required to administer such a payment.

One indication of the scale of potential additional programme spending would be to estimate the additional annual cost of increasing the main social protection spending programmes that are targeted at long-term illness and disability conditions. These include invalidity pension (for adults with sufficient social insurance contributions) and disability allowance (for persons aged 16-66) and those in receipt of domiciliary care allowance (paid in respect of children under 16 years). It is estimated that the annual cost of increasing these three payments by the equivalent of €20 per week would be of the order of €240 million.

According to recent results from Census 2016, there were some 643,000 people with a disability in the State in April 2016. The cost of introducing a cost of Disability Payment to all of these even if not in receipt of a disability payment would be considerably higher than the estimate based solely on those in receipt of disability related payments above.

There are no plans to establish a cost of disability payment with the social protection system. People with disabilities are not a homogeneous group, and, as such, have widely differing needs with the result that any additional costs of disability would not therefore arise to the same extent in all cases. Some costs associated with disability are already addressed across schemes provided by a number of agencies such as the health service and also the Revenue Commissioners through certain tax reliefs and other supports.

A range of these issues is currently being considered by the Task Force on Personalised Budgets, which has been established under the Programme for Government to consider the commitment to give people with disabilities greater control, independence and choice in terms of obtaining HSE-funded personal social services and supports. Personalised budgets transfer control back to the individual and give them the freedom to source the services and supports which best meet their needs.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.