The cost-of-living crisis is affecting people across society but disproportionately impacting disabled people. It has been long established that disabled people already face major additional financial burdens that result from living with a disability in a society that is so poorly adapted to their needs. These costs mount up daily in areas like healthcare, transport, energy, specialist equipment and the variety of supports needed to live as independently as possible. The figures are stark. Two in every five people with a disability cannot afford essentials like heating or new clothes. One in five lives in consistent poverty. Disabled people here also face far greater barriers to employment than their European counterparts. Yet, instead of easing that pressure, budget 2026 is leaving disabled people €1,400 worse off than the previous year. That is indefensible. In the Social Democrats alternative budget, we put forward fair and achievable proposals, including a permanent cost-of-disability payment alongside a €15 weekly increase in disability allowance. Taken together, those measures would have increased disabled people's incomes by over €1,800 a year. Following a campaign led by a coalition of disability organisations in December, we called on the Government to introduce an emergency winter payment of €400 for disabled people and we are doing so again today. We actually agree with the Government that targeted cost-of-living measures are needed for groups most vulnerable to poverty, but the Government failed to take that opportunity in the recent budget. It did not introduce the cost-of-disability payment that was set out in the programme for Government and actually stripped away one-off supports. At that protest in December, one man spoke about having to decide whether to turn on two bars or one bar on his electric heater because energy costs have risen so sharply. At a later session here on the campus of Leinster House, we heard a harrowing account of a woman having to stop home dialysis because of energy costs and relying instead on hospital dialysis, which placed her health more at risk and is actually a greater financial cost to the State. This is the gulf that has opened up in Ireland between a flourishing economy on the one hand and the vindication of basic rights for disabled people on the other. We again urge the Minister to intervene and deliver this modest targeted payment. It would benefit around 310,000 people at a cost of approximately €124 million. It is eminently doable. Each year winter bonus payments across core social welfare schemes are funded through Supplementary Estimates. This payment we are proposing can be delivered in exactly the same way. Of course, much more needs to be done in the medium to long term, such as removing barriers to education and employment, introducing personalised budgets and delivering the permanent cost-of-disability payment. Right now, however, people are struggling, and a targeted €400 payment would be a very modest step in the right direction and would make a material difference to people who have been disregarded for too long. This comes back to basic respect and dignity for disabled people. They deserve a Government that puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to the real, unavoidable costs of living with a disability and a Government that matches soothing rhetoric around disability rights with concrete action.

Sentiment score: 0.06