2026-04-21

17. Deputy John Connolly asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [18505/26]

18. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [18506/26]

19. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [26756/26]

20. Deputy Liam Quaide asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [26938/26]

21. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [28285/26]

22. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [28392/26]

23. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [28394/26]

24. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [28395/26]

25. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Taoiseach for an overview of the Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report recently published by his Department. [28442/26]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 17 to 25, inclusive, together. Improving the lives of disabled people, advancing their rights and enabling them to reach their full potential, is a core focus and priority of the Government. The Budget 2026: Spotlight on Disability report was published by my Department in December 2025. This is the first budget spotlight report prepared by the disability unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, which was established to bring a renewed focus, urgency and weight to disability issues. Drawing on inputs received from Departments, the report outlines new or enhanced disability-related measures introduced in budget 2026 that will support the implementation of the Government's overarching strategy for disability, the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. The report finds that budget 2026 had a particularly strong focus on investment in both disability and mainstream services. A record €3.8 billion allocation to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality for specialist disability services represents a 20% increase in funding for disability services, which will improve both the sustainability of the sector and the delivery of residential, respite and therapy services for children and adults. The disabilities workforce is growing year on year. From the end of December 2019 to September 2025, the disabilities workforce in HSE and section 38 providers grew by over 21%. Building on growth achieved in 2025, budget 2026 will allow for further targeted expansion in the workforce across key services. In 2026, funding has been allocated for an additional 945 whole-time equivalents, which will bring the disability workforce to almost 23,600 by the end of this year. Budget 2026 is not just about investing in recruitment but retaining the people we already have in the sector. This includes investing in pay and pay-related costs, such as those associated with recent pay deals and providing funding to meet the costs of the pay deal agreed with workers in section-39-funded services in the voluntary sector. Last year the HSE appointed an assistant national director for the disabilities workforce to drive disability workforce initiatives with particular emphasis on enhancing recruitment and retention in children’s disability network teams. Additionally, a first-ever dedicated national director for disability will be recruited in the HSE, as well as six new regional disability leads in the health regions. During 2025, the HSE has focused on analysing retention challenges to inform the development of meaningful retention actions. A disability workforce strategy will be developed by the HSE in 2026 to meet growing service demands and address recruitment and retention challenges across specialist disability services, including children’s disability network teams. Special education also saw record investment under budget 2026, totalling €3 billion, which will see an additional 860 special education teachers appointed along with over 1,700 special needs assistants. In February this year, the Minister, Deputy Naughton, announced the phased roll-out of the new education therapy service, which will see occupational therapists and speech and language therapists placed in schools. The first 45 special schools to benefit from this service have been selected and are based in clusters in Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Louth, Laois, Limerick, Longford, Meath, Monaghan, Tipperary, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and the Minister, Deputy Naughton, intend to have a further roll-out of the service on a phased basis with a wider roll-out to special schools commencing in the 2026-2027 school year. The current assessment of need system is not working as it should for children, many of whom are on long waiting lists for services. Work continues to fully resource children’s disability network teams to enhance capacity. It is important to note that children do not require an assessment of need to access health services, including primary care, children’s disability network teams and mental health services. Since June 2024, over 7,700 clinical assessments have been commissioned privately through the assessment of need, AON, targeted wait list initiative to support the delivery of AON reports, at a cost of €27.8 million. Budget 2026 allocated a further €20 million to this initiative to deliver up to 6,000 additional clinical assessments, with a specific focus on autism assessments. Other initiatives outlined in the report include increased investment in housing adaptation grants and in the public transport retrofit programme, along with enhanced supports for employers for the employment of disabled people. In addition, budget 2026 also contained targeted and mainstream social protection measures which will support households with disabilities, including increases in weekly rates, expansion of eligibility to schemes and amendments to income disregards for carers. Budget 2026 is a first step in the Government’s ambition to deliver the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. I believe we have made a strong start in year one of our programme of work and investment. Future budgets are expected to build on this progress to ensure disabled people are supported, empowered, and enabled to fully participate in their communities and society.

We all very much welcome the introduction, as the Taoiseach mentioned, of the new therapy and education service that will be implemented in special schools from next September. I very much welcome this for two schools in my constituency, Ábalta Special School and St. Joseph's Special School. One other commitment of the programme for Government - I think it is also included in the strategy in the Taoiseach's Department for tackling child poverty and supporting well-being, which the Taoiseach spoke about earlier - is to implement a single point of access for children referred to primary care, disability or mental health services. We are all familiar with the frustration of parents who are referred for a particular service and, when they visit that service, are advised that it is not the appropriate service for their child. People will be familiar with terms like CAMHS, CAMHS-ID, community psychology, disability network teams and assessments of need. It is crucial that we actively seek to implement a service such that there is no wrong door for the parent, that whatever referral they receive can act on the needs of their child and that these services work together and co-ordinate together to make sure that the child receives the appropriate service they need in a timely manner.

Budget 2026 unforgivably made some people in receipt of disability payments up to €1,400 worse off. People with disabilities want to contribute to society and want jobs in their communities. They have the same ambitions in life as everybody else. Ireland has one of the lowest disability employment rates in the EU, at between 32% and 33%. That is nearly 20 percentage points below the EU average. The wage subsidy scheme, which financially supports employers who employ people with disabilities, has facilitated the participation of many disabled people in the workforce. However, disabled entrepreneurs are excluded. Therefore, employers are financially supported to hire disabled people but disabled people are not supported to employ themselves. As the Taoiseach's Government has said that it will prioritise disability, will he examine how the wage subsidy scheme can be expanded to include disabled entrepreneurs?

Does the Government accept that disability service delivery in this State has become extraordinarily fragmented and that this fragmentation is making it impossible to guarantee equity, to plan services properly or to ensure public money is being used in the most effective way? I ask this because a recent response to a parliamentary question of mine shows that the HSE now has approximately 1,172 service arrangements or grant aid agreements with over 494 organisations providing disability services on its behalf. This includes 226 private, for-profit companies. On paper, we talk about integrated, standardised, person-centred community services; in practice, what we have is a disjointed system that is haphazard, dispersed and, essentially, ungovernable. When services are channelled through hundreds of separate organisations, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to ensure a similar standard of support regardless of where a person lives. It also inevitably means waste through duplication, administration and contract management. What will the Government do to move towards a genuinely direct public provision of disability services, proper workforce planning and genuinely standardised rights-based support for disabled people and their families?

Two years ago the parents of Dublin 15 took to the streets, or took to autism-friendly protests in parks, to highlight the dire situation whereby they could not get proper education for disabled, neurodivergent or autistic children. Two years on, we had a special task force in the area, which, as the Taoiseach well knows because it has been raised several times, did a huge review, but that review has not been published. We have 19 secondary school students who do not have school places in the area as well as many primary students. I want to mention one school that has written to me and all TDs, namely Hansfield Educate Together National School. It says it will have to consider putting students on-----

Again?

Hansfield, in Ongar. It will have to consider putting students on shortened school days, which is reprehensible. The school knows it will get flak for it but feels it has no alternative. It asked for an ANA and SNA review for an increased allocation and it was refused. It has seven new students who need SNAs. Only one student left. It also has 13 emerging students who need support and it has two autism classes in which at least two students have been told by the professional care team that they need one-to-one SNA support. The Government is not providing basic SNAs to the schools that need them. Why is that?

I welcome the improvements for disabilities that were highlighted but I would like to raise some issues I would love to be addressed as well. We would love some more attention in Dublin Bay North for Stapolin Educate Together National School. I have raised this multiple times. It has great staff. I visited again recently and it has a fantastic campaign on behalf of the children I represent in Dublin Bay North. The school is looking for a modular building so it can have a special class sanctioned. Speaking to the SNAs in that school-----

Sorry? It has a sanction?

It has not had the special class sanctioned because it has no room in the school, so it needs a modular building. I have spoken to the SNAs across my constituency as well and they-----

What is the name of the school?

Stapolin Educate Together National School in Baldoyle. I have spoken to those SNAs and some of them are involved in the Save our SNAs campaign, which has developed an alternative circular. Also, last week we had the residential placement for people with intellectual disabilities in north Dublin from the Before We Die campaign. I am sorry for raising two matters with the Taoiseach.

I was contacted by somebody, like the Taoiseach, who might have an interest in the all-Ireland final on 19 July, before anyone mentions the county I am from, which is doing quite well at the moment. The fact is that the free travel option they would have on the basis of their disability was not available in the rail options that were open to them. They wanted this highlighted as a point. I agree with Deputy Conway-Walsh, and we have spoken before about the need for a cost-of-disability payment, but we need to increase supports for those in work too. The work and access programme and the wage subsidy scheme need to be looked at. The latter definitely needs to be applied to those who are also self-employed and entrepreneurs. I will give one example of another specific issue: I am writing to ask for your assistance regarding an issue I'm experiencing with the current taxi licensing system. I have a long-term spinal condition which limits my ability to carry out heavy manual handling. Under the current regulations, new taxi licences are restricted to wheelchair-accessible vehicles and standard saloon taxi licences are no longer being issued. As I am not in a position to safely operate a WAV due to my condition, I find myself effectively without a viable pathway into the taxi profession. Obviously, this is an unintended consequence, but it is something we need to look at.

Deputy John Connolly was the first to ask a question. The schools therapy programme is working well. On the issue of the single point of access, the HSE has embarked on the idea of a one-door approach. The outgoing CEO, Bernard Gloster, was very focused on this. All last year at the Cabinet subcommittee on disability, he gave a very clear undertaking on behalf of the HSE that there would be a single point of access. Culturally and every other way, that is now being rolled out across the HSE. Deputy Connolly is absolutely correct when he says that children should not be moved from pillar to post. There should be one point open and there is now. It has been established. I will ask the HSE to get a report to the Deputy in terms of an update on it, but obviously a big change like that will take some time to bed down and be uniform. It is not disconnected from school places or the broader area of looking after children with disabilities such that we can move faster to provide the services the children require as opposed to being put from pillar to post. I will ask the HSE if we can get an update on that for the Deputy. He is absolutely correct that it is the only way to go. Up to last year, the situation was not acceptable. We had a debate about the therapy in schools service. I undertook prior to the election that it was a red-line issue for us that we wanted a schools-based therapy service. In many ways, that flowed from the inadequacy of what was happening within the health service in respect of therapy services and provision. To Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh, I would say that the budget allocated €3 billion to special education alone. There was €130 million for grants to adapt the homes of older people and disabled people. There is a €10 increase in the disability allowance and the expansion of the wage subsidy scheme. There was a €375 increase to the income limit for carer's benefit and we increased the monthly domiciliary care allowance by €20. There is a lot of long-term, permanent, positive measures for disability. The Deputy is correct in raising the wage subsidy issue. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, on this. Improvements were made last year but we are open to more radical improvements. In particular, I will speak to the Minister about disabled entrepreneurs. I do not see any reason they should be excluded from the wage subsidy scheme. We also need to look at the facility and capacity of people with disabilities to participate in the workforce without losing their disability allowance immediately. There are lots of issues around that. There are limits to how much a person's income rises. We need to be a bit more radical in that respect. Workplace participation will be an area of focus in the next budget. People with disabilities are not being given enough opportunities to enter the workplace. We have a poor record on this as a society and as a country. We have to do far better in that respect. The public service has made a lot of progress but needs to make more progress in facilitating employment. We have various employment schemes, such as Deaf Enterprises in my own area. We have made good progress with the HSE in that regard but for a long time there was no clear structure to support highly qualified craftwork such as upholstery and the repair of furniture, which is a great circular economy solution to the wider community that benefits. They were very skilled people but the financial sustainability and underpinning of it was not what it should be, so every now and again they would come looking for a bailout or some supports. We have improved upon that. Those are the areas. There are many other kinds of enterprises of that kind that we will do better on. I agree with Deputy Quaide that it is fragmented. We have inherited a system long before the State became involved in the seventies in disabilities where many of what we now call section 38 and section 39 organisations emerged from a period before State intervention, when organisations were set up to look after people with disabilities. We have come a long way since then but it is still problematic. There have been lots of improvements, including service level agreements, regarding complementarity with the State but the sustainability of quite a number of the organisations is an issue. In the long-term evolution of services for disabilities, there will have to be greater State involvement but that can only happen through an evolutionary process. There is a lot of expertise in these bodies as well, which we cannot lose. There is great voluntary endeavour and community and family engagement attached to it, all of which are positives when channelled and supported in the right direction. We do need to work hard at that. I think the Deputy said there are 1,172 grant-aided organisations providing services. Some are small and some are very large. We need to improve and streamline the relationship with the HSE regarding accountability and strategic future planning. I have an interest in this area. It is one of the reasons we have brought the ETBs in more on special education. Over time, the ETBs will have to develop capacity and experience, which they may not have had. At least now they have a wide range of resources and administrative capacity that can support the establishment of new special schools at primary and post-primary level. Perhaps we could have new campuses in education which would involve what we might call mainstream primary and secondary and special education schools all on the one campus. Ideally, that is where we should head in future school development so that there is proper integration on the campus overall. However, I do not disagree with the Deputy's fundamental point regarding the fragmentation. To Deputy Coppinger, I will seek out where that report is. There is no reason it should not be published. In terms of Hansfield and Ongar, we will engage. We will have 25,000 SNAs this year. We might now have more because the Government took a decision this morning in terms of the inclusive special school model, which will mean significantly more teachers and SNAs. This is because of the increased numbers who availed of the portal that was opened early last October. I cannot go into detail on every specific school but I do not know whether they have appealed that decision by the NCSE in respect of the number of SNAs they have sought. Deputy Heneghan raised the issue of the modular building. I will ask the Minister for education to respond. I do not know if the Deputy has talked to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, about this or not. Regarding the Save our SNAs campaign, I will meet the group and anyone who wants to meet me. My main point was that we are not in the zone where we have to save SNAs, because the number of SNAs is expanding. We will have a workforce planning framework for SNAs. Redeployment means that there will be employment security. I have a great commitment to SNAs. I introduced the concept in 1998 when I was Minister for education, and the number has grown exponentially. I see it increasing. The school therapy service is very important. I also think we have to look at other methods and supports that schools may require, such as behavioural therapy over time. There is not a one-size-fits-all model for how we approach children in need. On the Before We Die campaign, I have met the group. At the next meeting of the disability committee, we will be looking specifically at that shelter issue. I have spoken to the Ministers for housing and disability. It will take a whole-of-government approach to make sure that we can provide adequate sheltered housing and supported housing for adults with disabilities so as to relieve their parents of the stress and anxiety they are currently experiencing. Deputy Ó Murchú referred to the wage subsidy campaign and the all-Ireland, did he?

It was about all-Ireland tickets for the person who could not get the free travel option for the all-Ireland final date. They have tried to book it but they are not able to get the free travel option.

For the all-Ireland?

Exactly. They are getting ahead of themselves, but you know-----

There must be a lot of them from Cork, are there?

There may be.

I will follow that up. It is not available on the date, is it?

No, it is-----

It rarely is though for the special services, is it?

No, but these are not even the extra services that are put on. Usually this would be available but it is not available. The other thing was the guy with the spinal injury.

He cannot get to the match.

No. The guy with the spinal injury has been knocked out of the taxi industry because he has to buy a wheelchair-accessible vehicle and he is not able to operate it. I understand how this has happened. I will send it on. It is an unintended consequence.

Deputy Ó Murchú, I am sure the Taoiseach will follow up with you.