Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Disability Allowance is structured to support recipients to avail of work opportunities, be that self-employment or insurable employment. When an individual commences employment, they can avail of an income disregard of €165 per week. In addition, a 50% taper on earnings between €165 and €375 is currently applied.

Budget 2023 was the third successive budget that the Government has progressively increased earnings disregards, which see people with disabilities retaining more of their payments while in employment. The earnings disregard for recipients of Disability Allowance has increased by almost 38% over these budgets from €120 to €140 to €165 currently. You can now earn a maximum of €495.10 per week and still keep a portion of your Disability Allowance payment.

I am committed to reforming the disability payments of my Department. On 20^thSeptember I published a Green Paper on Disability Reform and launched the associated public consultation. The Green Paper on Disability Reform was developed as a response to commitments under the Roadmap for Social Inclusion, the Pathways to Work Strategy and the Make Work Pay Report and taking account of the Cost of Disability Report.

The intention of the proposals in the Green Paper is to simplify and make the social welfare system work better for people with disabilities. The proposals aim to provide additional support to those who need it most.

The tiered proposal in the Green Paper takes into consideration the recommendations of the Cost of Disability report, which found that income supports should be differentiated by need and that government policy should facilitate employment among those who can work.

Nobody will lose their payment or have their payment reduced. The objective is to increase people’s payments and provide more employment supports for those who can and want to work.

I would like to emphasise that the Green Paper is not a final design. It is only a starting point for a structured discussion on what the future of long-term disability payments could look like. It offers one possible approach on how to target limited resources - its proposals are intended to invite discussion, debate and suggestions.

I would like to encourage all those with an interest to express their views as part of the public consultation process, which will last until 15 December 2023.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.