Disability services continue to be shamefully neglected by the Government in Budget 2024, according to Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns.<\/p>\n
Deputy Cairns, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on disability, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople with disabilities must fight for the most basic rights from the day they are born. Despite the ongoing crisis in services, this Government continues to ignore the needs of disabled people and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing they are guaranteed from the State are waiting lists: waiting lists for an assessment of need; waiting lists for therapies; waiting lists for a school place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn’t even clarity on how much money is going to disability services. The Budget document lays out an insultingly low figure of just \u20ac64 million. This was immediately contradicted by Minister of State Anne Rabbitte yesterday, who stated that there was a \u20ac195 million package on the table. However, her shortlist of expenditure left \u20ac87 million of that unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what exactly is the number? How much is the Government actually planning to spend on our threadbare disability services?<\/p>\n
\u201cMy party is fully committed to improving the lives of people with disabilities. In our alternative budget, we allocated a total package of \u20ac534.1 million for disability services. This included a weekly \u20ac30 cost of disability payment, paid on top of core social welfare entitlements \u2013 a measure that was glaringly absent from yesterday\u2019s Budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no mention from Government of introducing pay parity for community and voluntary workers, who are set to strike next Tuesday, heaping even more pressure on creaking disability services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, the Government\u2019s derisory \u20ac12 increase in weekly welfare rates is not nearly enough to keep pace with inflation and will push more disabled people into poverty and deprivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuccessive governments have repeatedly failed people with disabilities. This Government cares so little about the challenges facing disabled people that it has yet to replace vital mobility schemes that were scrapped by the Taoiseach more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this Government won\u2019t sufficiently fund disability services at a time of record surpluses, then I have no faith that it ever will.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 11, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Disability services continue to be shamefully neglected by the Government in Budget 2024, according to Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns. Deputy Cairns, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on disability, said: \u201cPeople with disabilities must fight for the most basic rights from the day they are born. Despite the ongoing crisis in services, this Government continues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[400,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holly-cairns","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n