I commend Sinn Féin on this motion. This issue goes to the heart of whether we are serious about disability rights or content to keep repeating the language of disability rights while leaving disabled people to absorb costs that are neither optional, marginal nor of their own making. The cost of disability means higher expenses associated with transport, equipment, therapies, healthcare, communication supports and personal assistance, among other things. It means the cost of navigating a society that is still far too inaccessible and being expected to pay personally for that inaccessibility. It has been long established that disabled people face major additional financial burdens as a direct result of living with a disability in a society not properly adapted to their needs. The figures are stark: one in five people unable to work due to long-standing illness or disability lives in consistent poverty; around two in five experience enforced deprivation, meaning they cannot afford basics such as heating or new clothes. The ESRI and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission have shown that when the additional cost of disability is properly factored in, poverty among disabled people is drastically underestimated. Even those figures do not capture the daily reality. At a protest outside Leinster House before Christmas, one person spoke about having to decide whether to turn on one or two bars of an electric heater because energy costs have risen so sharply. At a later session on the Leinster House campus, we heard a harrowing account of a disabled person who had to stop home dialysis because of energy costs and rely instead on hospital dialysis, a change that put her health at greater risk. That example should stop us in our tracks. Home dialysis services a serious medical need. It means a modicum of increased independence in extremely challenging circumstances. It can mean fewer exhausting journeys, a little bit more control over one's life and less pressure on hospital services. Essentially, we have here somebody pushed into greater medical dependency and, ultimately, at greater cost to the State. It is a complete absurdity. Because of the cost of powering essential medical care at home, that person was forced away from the safer and more independent option. That is what the cost of disability can mean in real life. It means people making impossible decisions between heat, health and independence. This is happening, unforgivably, in a country with a flourishing economy, large budgetary surpluses and repeated Government statements about inclusion, participation and rights. There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government to introduce an annual cost-of-disability payment. There has been a consultation and a summit. There may be further papers, processes and interdepartmental work. Some of that will be necessary but disabled people cannot pay bills with consultations or heat their homes with strategy documents. They cannot run medical equipment on future commitments. The Government needs to move from acknowledgement to serious action. There must be a permanent annual cost-of-disability payment. There must be immediate relief for people under pressure right now. Disability allowance and related payments must be brought to a level that reflects the reality of poverty, deprivation and additional costs. Too often, our system treats disability support as though it is only about whether someone can or cannot work. However, many disabled people want to work, want to build careers, want to start businesses and want to contribute socially and economically. What they face is a system full of cliff edges, maddening complexity and risk. Disability campaigner Eddie Hennessy from County Cork has described this powerfully. After a major stroke, Eddie built a photography business and became an award-winning photographer. He has gone to major lengths to highlight the infuriating barriers faced by disabled entrepreneurs: higher costs, the need for personal assistance, the risk of losing essential supports and a lack of joined-up responsibility across Departments and agencies. One reality he has captured is that supports exist, to some extent, for businesses to employ disabled people but not for disabled people to employ themselves. That is exactly the kind of structural barrier we need to confront. For disabled people, self-employment may be the best path to self-actualisation and the best way to work flexibly, yet instead of supporting that ambition, the State often turns it into a bureaucratic nightmare. People are then forced to ask: if I try to work, will I lose my supports? If I take on a contract, will I be punished? If my business has a good month and then a bad month, will the system understand that? If I need assistance to do the parts of the job my disability makes difficult, will that be recognised as a legitimate cost of participation? This is where cost-of-disability policy must connect with policies on employment, enterprise, transport, housing and health. Otherwise, we trap people in poverty and then congratulate ourselves for speaking about inclusion. The Government cannot continue to describe disability rights as a priority while refusing to resource the basic conditions that make those rights real.

Sentiment score: -0.05