Bennett speaks on the cost of disability

Around the Houses

"No person should be left socially, politically or economically worse off because of a disability," Deputy Cathy Bennett (SF) stated in the Dáil last week.

She said the estimated additional cost to a household in which a person with a disability lives stands at €555 per week. "Worse again is that, rather than improving the situation, the Government’s budget last October actually made the situation worse.

Despite a cost-of-living crisis continuing unabated, the Government chose to withdraw supports for people with disabilities to the tune of €1,400," she said.

"It is simply not good enough to tell people that they have to wait for budget 2027 or beyond.

It is a failure to recognise the current pressures that people are facing." She called for "urgent intervention" through a "lump sum" of €500 for people with disabilities and a permanent intervention through a new cost-of-disability payment to be introduced "immediately, rather than at the next budget or later."

"It is a disgrace for the Government to say that."