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ESRI STUDY POINTS TO NEED FOR COST OF DISABILITY PAYMENT

Tuesday 11th April, 2006.

The latest ESRI research on poverty, published yesterday, points to the absolute need for the long recommended Cost of Disability payment to be introduced, People with Disabilities in Ireland (PwDI), the national organisation representing all people with disabilities, said today.

Chief Executive Michael Ringrose said: “The latest study shows, yet again, that people with disabilities are amongst the most at risk of consistent poverty.

“We are now ten years on from the report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, which first recommended such a payment. And at the launch of this ESRI study we have a Government Minister telling us that the eradication of poverty in Irish society remains of the highest priority for the Government.

“Yet, there are no indications from Government that we are anywhere near implementing this 10 year old recommendation,” he said.

The Cost of Disability payment is based on the fact that people with disabilities have higher fuel, transport and general cost of living expenses than the rest of the community.

“The need for the cost of disability payment is very well established. The Government must act on it and prevent people with disabilities from falling deeper into poverty,” said Mr Ringrose.

A National Disability Authority report, published in 2004, found that a weekly payment of €40 is needed to meet the extra costs associated with a high level of disability, down to €10 for moderate disabilities.

“This is an equality issue,” said Mr Ringrose. "A person with a disability on the same income as a person without a disability has a lower standard of living because of the extra costs associated with disability.”

In an interview in the latest edition of Cúmhacht, PwDI’s quarterly magazine, Fr Séan Healy, Director of the Justice Commission of the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) says that the Cost of Disability payment will be high on the agenda of the Social Partnership talks. He says:

“There is a disjoint between the increasingly broad acceptance of what’s required and the actual provision of what’s required.

“I’m talking about social welfare supports and retraining for employment - but I’m also talking, in particular, about non-means-tested cost-of-disability payments.”

He continued: “There’s a growing recognition that there’s a cost attached to disability. A person may be elderly or young or unemployed, but whatever category they fall into, their disability involves an additional day-to-day cost that is unavoidable. And that should be officially recognized and dealt with on a non-means-tested basis. It’s something that needs to be agreed now in principle.”

Fr Healy told Cúmhacht that this debate, like so many others, immediately throws up the degree to which the State’s response to people with disabilities is fragmented, dealt with by too many government departments and units.

“It’s a very good example of where we need joined-up government and properly integrated services,” he says.

Ends

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