I thank everyone who contributed to the discussion and my colleagues, Deputies Quaide and Hayes, for bringing forward the motion and all the work they did on it. I first want to address the very serious comments made by the Minister, Deputy Calleary, earlier on. He said he did not want a misleading or dangerous message going out that people must choose between food and heating. These comments show how grossly out of touch with reality the Minister is. It is very disturbing that he does not realise what is actually going on. Indeed, the comments he made afterwards that he is going to get his Department to get onto the disability organisations that are talking about the reality faced by disabled people to try to get them to change what they are saying is-----

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If there is any implication of getting onto them to-----

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I am glad the Minister clarified that. However, his comments are nonetheless very disturbing. They do not show a knowledge of the realities that are faced by disabled people due to the Government's decision to cut the incomes of disabled people by €1,400 in the budget. That is an absolutely unforgivable decision on any scale and is utterly unnecessary at a time when we have a budget surplus running into billions of euro. It was a cruel and heartless decision. I have a question for every Government Minister and backbench TD. When they got involved in politics and first ran for elected office, did they ever envisage a time when they would be part of a Government with billions of euro in budget surpluses that would cut the incomes of disabled people by €1,400? To be fair, I cannot imagine they ever envisaged such a situation, ever signed up for it or would have ever have supported it. Why are we now in a situation where that is exactly what is happening? They voted through a budget that cuts the income of disabled people by €1,400. When there is a modest proposal for an emergency winter payment to take some of the pain out of that, for just €400 per person, they do not support that proposal. Why are they doing this? Why will they not now make a stand in support of disabled people who do not want to be in this situation of effectively reaching out to the Government and crying out for this emergency winter payment measure? They want to be able to participate fully in Irish society, the same as anybody else. They do not want to be in this situation. It is not too late for the Government to reduce its cruel and heartless decision. I call on it do that now.

Sentiment score: -0.16