This motion requires the Government to do the right thing for disabled people. I worked with the Irish Wheelchair Association in the late nineties as a personal assistant. Just before that, I worked as a personal support worker for disabled people in London. I was a newly graduated young person and I was very happy to do that work and gain an insight into the perspectives, practical needs and care needs of people with disabilities. At the time, I noted that services and supports for disabled people in London were far better than those for Dubliners. I am not sure that Dubliners are now in a better situation than they were in the late nineties. Things are equally as bad. This country needs to make sure that all vulnerable people are protected. When we have all of the budget surpluses we have, I am lost for words that we always choose to forget the most vulnerable in our society. The need for a cost-of-disability payment was identified as far back as 2004, only a couple of years after I came back from London, when I was working with people with disabilities. That principle was reaffirmed by the State-commissioned Indecon report published in 2021. In 2022, the ESRI produced a report, Headline Poverty Target Reduction in Ireland and the Role of Work and Social Welfare, which found that "working-age ... [people] with disabilities ... experienced distinctively high rates of income poverty, deprivation and consistent poverty". It is mind-boggling that working people would still face consistent poverty. The programme for Government contains a commitment regarding the introduction of "a permanent Annual Cost of Disability Support Payment with a view to incrementally increasing this payment." However, when it came to budget 2026, there were tumbleweeds. Nothing was included. The Government has come out with this new mantra that this is year one of a five-year budget. That is no use to people with disabilities who cannot pay their bills now. As my colleagues stated, they are choosing between eating and heating. They are choosing whether to turn on a dialysis machine and to live their lives with dignity. The cynical part of me wonders whether the Government is saving up money in this year one of a five-year budget until just before the next election, when there will be a big splurge. I really hope I am wrong about that. I really hope I am just being uber-cynical and that this will not prove to be the case. In my constituency of Dublin South-Central, I meet people who are struggling to pay bills, eat healthily and heat their homes. They really need this extra money. As I said earlier, no one in this country should be struggling or falling below a safety net. They should be allowed to live their lives with dignity. This motion gives the Government a solution. The Taoiseach regularly stands where the Minister is sitting now during Leaders' Questions and tells us that we do not offer solutions. Here is a solution. It is very practical. As Deputy Whitmore said, it is not going to cost the earth but it will mean the world to people with disabilities. This is an easy solution. Please take it. We love giving our solutions away because we have solutions that are costed, focused and evidence based. We are working with people in the community in this country and we know that things are not as good as they should be. I ask the Minister to consider what we are saying.

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