Liam Quaide

We need to be very careful about how we make that point.

Yet another young person has been suspended in Carrigaline Community Special School in the past week. There has been an alarming pattern of suspensions there since 2022. Parents have also spoken of a pattern of de facto suspensions where they are repeatedly called to pick up their child early from school for behaviours that are intrinsic to their disabilities. The Taoiseach is very familiar with t…

I commend Sinn Féin on its motion. As the Minister knows, it has been long recognised that having a disability comes with significant additional financial pressures that include the cost of therapy, equipment and transport. Despite repeated calls from advocacy groups over many years to introduce a cost-of-disability payment, the Minister’s Government decided not to implement this measure in budge…

Deputy Burke wants to come in for a supplementary question.

Deputy Kenny has a supplementary question.

Deputy George Lawlor on Question No. 103

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I commend Deputy Roche on his heartfelt and powerful testimony. I thank him for sharing it with us. In response to the mental health allocations in the budget, I want to be constructive and fair. I welcome the crisis support cafés that were announced, the focus on suicide prevention and the increase in CAMHS inpatient bed capacity. However, it is also…

I note that the Environmental Protection Agency received additional funding in yesterday's budget. That is welcome, but we know from recent events that it is not all about funding when it comes to its powers. It is also about the willingness of the EPA to impose serious consequences on entities or individuals that cause damage to our natural world. The Minister will be aware of the catastrophic Bl…

I move: "That Dáil Éireann: recognises: — the invaluable contribution of family carers, who provide full-time care to family members with disabilities, chronic illnesses, or age-related care needs, often at great personal, financial and emotional cost; — that family carers play a critical role in the Irish care system, providing unpaid labour that saves the State more than €20 billion every ye…

I thank all my colleagues who supported our motion. The Minister, Deputy Calleary, emphasised in his response to the motion that he will not be opposing it and that there is "nothing between us", regarding the means test for carer's allowance. Yet, there is a major difference between abolishing the means test for carer's allowance in budget 2026 and abolishing it in budget 2030. Within that gulf b…

I was nine or ten years old when I first read about the Holocaust. I vividly remember what a profound impact it had on me at the time. I learned of unthinkable acts committed by people against other people and it shattered the rather innocent view I had of human nature up until that point. I recall going into a very dark state of mind, something akin to what the novelist Martin Amis later termed “…

Thank you, Deputy.

I visited CDYS in Mitchelstown on two occasions recently and I was hugely impressed by the work it does with young people, not just from north Cork but also from parts of counties Limerick and Tipperary. It also works closely with young people from the asylum-seeking and refugee community living locally. The staff exhaust all grants available to them to maintain an innovative, diverse range of act…

85. Deputy Liam Quaide asked the Minister for Social Protection his plans to introduce a cost of disability payment to help address the significant additional costs of having a disability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50570/25]

Will the Minister provide some detail on the Government's commitment to introduce a permanent cost of disability payment to help to address the significant additional costs that come with having a disability and impose financial hardship on many of our disabled citizens?

I thank the Minister for his response. A recent report from the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission shows that the additional costs faced by disabled people are now estimated to be between 52% and 59% of disposable income. For those with more severe disabilities, that rises to as much as 93%. These costs arise across essential areas, including …

The introduction of a cost-of-disability payment has been proposed but not acted upon for far too long. Detailed research and costings were carried out by the National Disability Authority as far back as 2006 and updated in the comprehensive Indecon report of 2021. Both reports clearly demonstrated the significant additional costs that come with living with a disability. These findings have been c…

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, for being here. The Social Democrats' views on the auto-enrolment system have been well articulated by my colleague Deputy Gannon in previous Dáil debates, particularly in April of last year. We very much welcome the concept but have concerns which I will go into in some detail. Every worker should have access to a retirement income capable of provi…

Enrolment in our school bus system has become an annual crisis, involving huge stress and uncertainty for many families. It is a stand-out example of the Government's inability or unwillingness to get the basics right for families. What should be a straightforward service has become an epic fiasco of poor, disjointed planning and crude restrictions, with so much unnecessary worry and hassle for th…

I thank the Minister for being here. The Government's newly launched national human rights strategy for disabled people is strong on aspirational language but we have yet to see any details on implementation such as funding commitments, staffing benchmarks or timeframes to back it up. For a sector that is so deep in crisis across all areas, including educational placements, access to therapies in …

I commend Sinn Féin on its motion. At the Committee on Disability Matters this morning, the Minister of State told us that the number of children without a special education placement for this school term was in single digits. It is fair to say there was some respectful scepticism among committee members about that claim. I raised with the Minister of State the fact that there is a world of differ…

I also pay tribute to the outstanding staff in the Oireachtas, with a special mention for the excellent broadcast workers here, 13 of whom will be laid off over the summer due to the precarious and unfair nature of their contracts. Almost one year ago to the day, my party leader, Deputy Holly Cairns, raised the issue of more than 5,000 young people waiting for primary care psychology services in …

I thank Deputy Stanley for bringing forward the motion. It presents us with another opportunity to discuss the crisis in dental care. The Social Democrats tabled a similar motion in May of last year. Unfortunately, the challenges facing dental care in Ireland remain and urgent action on the part of the Government is still required. One significant issue relates to the number of dentists within the…

There is a close relationship between this Bill and the HSE's corporate plan. In the HSE's corporate plan for 2025 to 2027, there is a stated commitment to, "Reduce waiting times for primary care therapies by standardising the management of referrals, waiting lists and discharges." There is no mention of a recruitment drive for services that have been hollowed out by years of recruitment restrict…

The cost-of-living crisis in Ireland can no longer be considered a transient hardship. For much of our population, it has become an entrenched form of social injustice with a vast array of adverse outcomes, both short-term and potentially far-reaching for the many people caught up in it. Nowhere is this crisis more obvious for hard-pressed families than in the weekly grocery shop, which has become…