It is despicable that people with disabilities lost €1,400 in the budget. To hit the most vulnerable in that way while giving massive additional handouts to some of the most profitable companies in the world in the form research and development tax credits says everything people need to know about the priorities of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their supposedly Independent allies. The disability community is very angry. It will take to the streets in a demonstration on 28 February co-organised by the Cost of Living Coalition, with which many of the Opposition parties are involved, and trade unions, unemployed organisations and a range of civil society organisations. I urge people who are rightly furious about what has been done by this Government to people with disabilities to get out onto the streets in large numbers in order to mobilise and demand. What we are discussing reflects what the disability community is fighting for. I commend the Social Democrats on putting the motion forward. I am sure the Social Democrats would be the first to acknowledge that the motion contains the demands being made by the disability community. It is demanding these things and it is very angry. I wish to convey that to the Government, which is will be facing a storm if it does not meet those demands. The disability community has insisted that there be a protest. It is not that we are suggesting a protest. Rather, the community is demanding one. It is going to mobilise, and I hope there will be a massive protest to send a message to this Government that disabled people want the emergency payment of €400. It is absolute pittance compared with what the Government has given to developers and big, obscenely profitable multinationals. The cost-of-disability payment is something for which we in People Before Profit have been advocating for many years. That is in recognition of the enormous additional costs of disability. They are also evidenced based. People with disabilities are not making this up. I credit my colleague in Sinn Féin Deputy Louise O’Reilly, who she pointed out to me that the Minister stated that the Opposition should be careful about using inflammatory suggestions to the effect that there is a trade-off between heating and eating. What flipping planet is the Minister living on that he would say that. It is absolutely outrageous. Does he know that about 500,000 households are suffering from energy poverty and that people with disabilities suffer disproportionately as a result of the things to which I refer? This is not rhetoric from the Opposition; these are evidence-based assertions regarding the facts. Any TD who is in touch with people in their area and who talks to people with disabilities knows that people on lower incomes and those with disabilities, with all the additional costs they have, amounting to between €12,000 and €15,000 a year, are disproportionately hit by energy poverty. It is a very real choice for people with disabilities to have to make the decision to turn off the heating. If they do not do so, they will not have enough to pay for groceries or pay their bills. What the Minister said was just extraordinary. The Government should do the right thing, reverse the disgraceful attacks on the incomes of those with disabilities that the it instigated in the budget and, finally, recognise the right of people with disabilities to real equality. Real equality means giving them a cost-of-disability payment to allow them to participate equally in our society.

Sentiment score: -0.05