Next week, I’m bringing a Social Democrats motion to the floor of the Dáil calling on the government to immediately introduce an Emergency Winter Payment for people with disabilities.
We are honoured to row in behind the campaign from a coalition of Disabled Persons’ Organisations led by the Disabilities Federation of Ireland, the Irish Wheelchair Association, Access for All in calling for this payment. Honoured, but not surprised that we have to.
About 20% of people in this country have a disability or disabling condition, and most people will experience a disability at some point in their lives. Disabled people experience some of the highest poverty rates, deprivation rates, and unemployment rates of any cohort in our Republic. In fact, the OECD found that we had the widest employability gap in the developed world (less than 30% in employment vs. 70%+ in the non-disabled population). For many people with disabilities, state support is their only income, with the average person on Disabilities Allowance on ~€14,000 per year.
The Programme for Government agreed a year ago by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Independent Group, committed to introducing a permanent cost of disability payment, an idea first mooted in 2004 and recommended in an official report in 2021.
Imagine then the shock, when it turned out that the 2026 Budget introduced last October not only failed to introduce that cost of disability payment, but left disabled people €1,404 worse off this year than last, according to the Disabilities Federation of Ireland and the Irish Wheelchair Association. That’s up to a 10% drop for the average person on disabilities allowance. A copy of how they came up with that figure is here:
To add insult to injury, the Minister for Social Protection has since said he is hoping to introduce the cost of disability payment in Budget 2027, a full 2 years after the government committed to bringing it in. For anyone who has spoken to someone with a disability under financial pressure, this 2 year delay is not just neglectful, it’s injurious.
There was a better way. In the same 2026 Budget season, the Social Democrats proposed an Alternative Budget that would have delivered at least €1,800 more for people with disabilities with a new and permanent cost of disabilities payment. Additional measures like a €400 energy credit for the bottom 40% of households and a fuel allowance increase beyond what the government delivered, would have actually delivered a badly-needed increase in net income for the average person on disabilities allowance. In the context of the cost of living crisis in housing costs, energy costs, and food, we felt it was the least we could do.
Disabled people, though, were vulnerable before the cost of living crisis, often treated as “charity cases” not “rights-holders” as one witness reported in the Disabilities Committee recently. The fact that so many are restricted in going to work or out and about, energy costs at home had a particularly alarming effect. Many are now reporting choosing between food and heat, or creche fees and charging their electric wheelchair. During a recent meeting in Leinster House, one person even reported that on their only electric heater which they sit by every day, they were having to reduce the number of heated rungs from two down to one in order to save on energy costs.
Disabled people, like all people in a proper Republic of equals, deserve dignity and the support of their society. They face all kinds of exclusion in transport, housing, employment – the list goes on. The very least we could do is financially support them. And the support their asking for with this Emergency Winter Payment is an incredibly modest ask.
We hope the government will accept our motion for the Emergency Winter Payment of €400 for people with disabilities. But whether they do or not, we need to do so much more, and the Social Democrats will continue that fight for as long as it takes to give disabled people the rights and dignity they deserve.