Richard Boyd Barrett highlights injustice in disability payments

T-shirt while I was getting my treatment in St Luke's I met a very nice woman called Shirley whose daughter Lauren she brought her case with me and Lauren subsequently wrote to me Lauren lives with her and has a lifelong disability condition which means she's unfit for work she had been previously on domiciliary care allowance then on disability allowance but she then got married and she lives at home with her mum still been cared for by her mum but because she got married and went over the threshold her disability payment has been cut and it really just highlights the massive problem and injustice of having means testing of disability payments so what do you have to say to Lauren and many many others like her who lose all support for their disability on the basis that their partner's income has gone over a very arbitrary threshold I'll try and do what I can as quickly as I can no you're okay just yeah but I'm not really conscious of all those um sorry to start um Deputy Dempsey raised the issue in terms of um transition from child services to adult services and that there was an absence of early planning for that and also made a comment that the parents were told that there would be therapies would not be available in transition that's not acceptable and respite should not be withdrawn now in the disability unit that I've established a key work stream will be planning and designing for the future there should be proper data and there should be proper early analysis of expected need for services from primary to post-primary from post-primary to adult or indeed continuing education or other aspects and that's where I want to get to and that's where we want to get to um as a government because there is no doubt and and Deputy Arda has raised this as well as have others the insecurity is shocking it's very sad there's so many parents and I've met them um have no certainty Deputy Daley said it was a cliff edge and it is for many and if you talk to some of the providers and the section 38 and 39 they're all dealing with emergency cases that's not satisfactory so we've got to get a more planned approach um to this transition I think there are also issues in terms of the inter actually between the section 38 39 and government and government services and how that works um and many of those are under pressure as well I have to acknowledge but equally we've got to work out you know the models and so forth there should be proper databases outlining you know how many people are in a given um service at a given time and what will be do what will the requirements be um at a later date and that issue of creating a secure transition and that older parents in particular senior citizens know have a certain sense of security and knowledge well in advance uh that their children will be looked after in case anything happens in terms of themselves and that is a very understandable human concern which has not been met at the moment but which needs to be met and and very determined that we would put services in place to enable that um to happen and there is a fear as Deputy Ardaa said there um and you you call for a national plan for this and it's something I think that is that I'm going to work on and that people would have that security um and I think all the deputies in that regard uh have have raised that issue we should be looking at a seamless transition ideally that's what we should be looking at um and there's a link into housing as well in that respect and different solutions at different um times in the journey of life that people can move to better accommodation more suitable accommodation and we should have greater flexibility around that provision and there can be too many silos um between different government departments and respect to that but we are working on that that's what the cabinet subcommittee is for to do across government all of government approach um deputy um and then the in terms of the income and the disregard the cost of disability uh the deputy daily and others again raised that and again we first of all the cost of disability will be looked at in the next budget and there's a working group established in relation to that but also the relationship between work and disability payment there are some supports um there for transitioning if you like from disability from the social protection system into work in terms of medical care and on those but i think that can be strengthened um and and giving and that those moving into work can be great given greater certainty more long-term certainty certainty that they will retain their benefits um or whatever entitlements they have as they go into work um now the there has been improvements on the employer grant and so on like that that that that has improved but um that there is further work to be done in terms of giving greater security around that transition and encouraging people to go into work without fear of losing um what what what their their health entitlements or the various other entitlements that they have we dealt with earlier in terms of the questions that leaders questions in respect of um harvey morrison and i would say to the deputy that the minister is right this afternoon meeting with the parents the minister did look for a chronology from the hsc the minister has that uh the minister shared that with the family and so the hsc the ceo of the hsc shared that with the family it's a draft because the family the hsc wanted the family's input into that um the protected disclosure i dealt with earlier at leaders questions um the minister did not see that um and all protected disclosures don't go to the the ministers per se the minister has an obligation to establish a system by which it goes to the disclosure the protected disclosure commissioner and that that commissioner has um the specific protected disclosure and is not going to deal with that but without question there's a meeting on um between the minister and appearance of harvey with a view to an inquiry the precise format and to to be determined that the coppager had a similar question in relation to this um and it is a fundamental question as to why harvey was taken off a waiting list there are clinical decisions clearly involved here um that have to be examined um and will be examined um and um and likewise there's other broader um investigations and examinations of issues pertaining to chis you know some of them have come in some haven't but overall again terms of reference have to be specific here and we have to make sure that we don't have you you we can have statutory inquiries that can go on too long and don't give closure to families so i think there's a bit of work to be done yet and the minister's meeting with the family in that regard um in terms of uh the deputy murphy raised the issue of um again the cost of disability program i've dealt with that earlier in so far as the next budget uh we'll be dealing with that um the once-off payments were two years what we were determined to do in this budget was to increase the permanent payments within the social protection system which we did for example and enhance them as well and also in terms of the carers allowance threshold and income disregard to increase that and we will eliminate that over the lifetime of this government we increased the um domiciliary care alone significantly uh now in terms of the and then in terms of education the about there's now about 46 500 teachers in sns working in our education system committed to supporting and nurturing children with special education needs and so there's huge numbers of special needs assistants have been appointed over the last number of years there's about 400 new special classes for in the budget of 2025 um about 2 700 new places for the 25 26 school year um some of those school places have not yet been you know they're in under construction and being put in place there's a number of specifics have been asked i checked those out with the minister um i i'm not in a position to have knowledge of every single application of um from individual schools in respect of autism classes and so forth um but i will follow those up uh with with the minister and i presume the deputies are also engaging with the departments in in in respect of that the assessment of needs the cabinet subcommittee disability did approve outline proposals for a change in legislation which will have to happen and to prioritize the provision of services and therapy services to children has been the number one priority in terms of the legislation legislative objective of that aims is a critical intervention for early years in terms of disability in terms of deputy mcginnis's question i would make that point and that has been enhanced and approved and will be improved as a result of the recent budget again raised the issue that deputy arda and deputy dempsey raised in terms of insecurity and worry um and the for for um aging parents of children with disabilities i'm very conscious of that and we will work to see can we improve upon that uh deputy conway roger i've dealt with that question again the issue deputy o'callahan again i'll check in terms of the school of bell dial i don't have awareness of that um and in terms of deputy by barrett's again i don't have the specific issue but i think it's an income threshold issue in terms of people marrying and i will have that i will have that examined i will have that examined and that's something that certainly we can look at um also um and to um and and i'll talk to the minister of social protection in relation to that thank you one on mikey henry benson sorry but again i look i'll talk to the minister respect but to be fair i mean there's a clinical you know this should be done at hospital level it should be done properly through the clinicians properly engaging with the family with the parents there are liaison officers in the chi as well who should be but i'll ask i'll make the minister aware of the case thank you