Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne says the Government must listen to people with disabilities in Tipperary and bin the Green Paper.
The Department of Social Protection is to extend the deadline for the public consultation on the Disability Green Paper “in response to requests from individuals, Disabled Person’s Organisations and disability groups so that they will have further time to make their submissions.”
The new closing date is July 31st 2024.
The Green Paper is a significant policy development which proposes a number of potential changes to Ireland’s social protection approach to disability and includes proposals on reforming 5 income supports: the disability allowance, the invalidity pension, the blind pension, the partial capacity benefit and the domiciliary care allowance.
The Department says no one will lose an existing payment or end up on a lower payment and that the plan is to increase people’s payments and provide more employment supports for those who can and want to work.
For more information visit the Government website at this link here.
Deputy Browne notes that the proposals the Government have brought forward have caused huge concern that Ireland will follow the model in Britain where people are forced into work that is unsuitable and people with disabilities face sanction.
Deputy Browne is calling for reform of the existing system of disability payments.
The TD highlights that “Low levels of employment for people with disability and the very high extra cost of disability compound the need for urgent system-change to ensure people don’t fall further below the poverty line.”
The TD says the Green Paper wrongfully conflates the cost of disability with employment and capacity to work and adds that the paper also assumes that the more severe the disability, the higher the cost to the individual.
Research by Indecon in 2021 estimates that the overall average annual costs of disability in Ireland ranges from €9,482 per annum to €11,734.
