2026-02-26

2. Deputy Eoin Hayes asked the Minister for Social Protection to provide an update on his engagement with disabled persons' organisations; the consultation he is undertaking on the cost-of-disability support payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15656/26]

Last week, the Minister announced that a public consultation is to take place on the cost of disability. Will he confirm that this is with a view to introducing a permanent cost-of-disability support payment in budget 2027? As part of that consultation discussion with disabled persons' organisations, will the Minister withdraw his comments on their lived experiences in saying that their accounts of their experiences were misleading and dangerous?

I thank the Deputy. The Government recognises the additional costs that are associated with having a disability. We are committed to improving outcomes for disabled people. The programme for Government includes a range of commitments to support disabled people, which includes a commitment to introduce an annual cost-of-disability support payment. In addition, under the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, which was developed with significant input from disability groups and their advocates, it was agreed to establish a strategic focus network summit on the cost of disability. While that is led by my Department, it will include other Government Departments. This is a cross-government endeavour and I will be hosting the summit on 13 May 2026. Departmental officials meet regularly with representatives of disability organisations bilaterally as part of regular meetings with the community and voluntary pillar and in a dedicated disability consultative forum. Disability groups are also represented at the annual pre-budget forum, the post-budget briefing and the annual social inclusion forum. Since October 2025, my officials have met several groups, including disabled persons and disabled persons' organisations, to discuss the cost of disability. In December, the cost-of-disability strategic focus network was the main agenda item of my Department's disability consultative forum. Officials from across the Government were in attendance at this meeting. I met representatives of the disability consultative forum yesterday, which gave me an opportunity to engage directly with them on many of these issues. Last Friday, 20 February, I launched the public consultation process on how a cost-of-disability payment and a strategic focus network summit can best be delivered. It will run for over six weeks and will close on 7 April. We are inviting members of the public to participate in the consultation by submitting written, video or telephone contributions. That consultation is open to everybody, with particular encouragement for disabled people and their families and carers, disabled persons' organisations and representative groups. I encourage any interested party to visit gov.ie/cod. To date, we have had over 80 submissions and we have tried to design the consultation to ensure the biggest accessible format available. We are open to input.

I thank the Minister. I genuinely welcome his engagement with the disabilities organisations. The question I have is how that engagement has been going. We put forward the emergency winter payment motion, which has been supported by those disabilities organisations. Has that come up at those meetings? Has it come up in the consultations so far? It is important to note the rebuttal given by the Minister, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. They pointed to the supplementary welfare schemes as something that people could avail of if they were in dire straits and choosing between heat and food. Notably, only 3,000 people availed of that payment last year. The emergency winter payment, as proposed, would affect 300,000 people. What is the Government doing for the other 297,000 people this year? They are suffering under the cost of disability. I ask for a second time if the Minister will withdraw the hurtful and disgraceful remarks he made about the lived experience of people with disabilities in the recent past.

First, those remarks were not aimed at people with disabilities. They were aimed at political parties that are trying to weaponise the issue.

What we are saying is the truth.

Supports are available but we want to do a lot more on this. That is why we are putting a huge amount of work into a permanent payment. The cost-of-disability summit in May will produce a briefing paper. I intend to bring that to the Government as part of the budget 2027 negotiations. We are only at the end of February and the budget negotiations are not yet under way. This issue will be my priority going into those discussions. I invite Deputy Hayes and all the political parties to take part in the submission process, as Deputy O'Reilly has indicated she will do, and to put forward their views on what a permanent cost-of-disability payment might look like and how it should be structured. We had a very good engagement with the groups yesterday. They continue to pursue an emergency winter payment but my focus is on fulfilling the programme for Government commitment to introduce a permanent payment rather than a temporary, one-off, year-to-year payment.

The House should be aware that a protest will take place this Saturday against the failure to deliver the emergency winter payment. The disability organisations, despite meeting with the Minister and his officials several times, have called for that protest, which I will attend. There is a conversation happening about a permanent cost-of-disability payment and I really welcome that as a direction of travel. However, there was no repeat in budget 2026 of the €400 payment in budget 2025. The Minister is saying that from budget 2027 on, there will be a payment. The lived experience of disabled people is that they had a one-off non-payment in budget 2026. I ask the Minister for the third time: will he withdraw his hurtful and disgraceful remarks about the lived experiences of people with disabilities? They were derisory and it was deeply upsetting for many people with disabilities to hear that is what the Minister for Social Protection thinks of their lived experience.

As I said, we are focused on a permanent payment, not a temporary payment from budget to budget. We are focused on getting the design right and on involving as many voices as possible to ensure we consider as many ideas as possible in order to get it right. We had very good and constructive discussions about this with the disabled persons' organisations yesterday. We want to ensure the summit in May is a practical, focused and business-like event. Certainly for me, it will not be a tick-the-box event. We genuinely want to hear from people and get their input into the design of the payment. We will use all the feedback from that process during the budget 2027 discussions. At that point, it will be my priority. We are well away from any budget preparations or commitments but, as I continue to assure the Deputy, it is my priority and we will go into the process looking to deliver it. The proposal we deliver will be one that is owned and shared by those with disabilities and their families, carers, representative organisations and advocates.