Catherine's law: Time to be honest about  harm of means-tested disability support

Catherine Gallagher: Before my issue went public, trying to find the information to understand the social welfare constraints was incredibly difficult.

IT’S been a year since regulations were signed to allow disabled students accept PhD scholarships and retain their disability allowance. This week it was announced the legislation will extend to include blind and visually impaired people in receipt of the blind pension.

These amendments to the legislation were dubbed “Catherine’s Law” after my public ordeal last March. It does not belong to me, however; it is for all of us in the community. It was a longstanding issue before my time. I am always conscious of the hundreds, if not thousands, of disabled people in Ireland who could not apply for scholarships or had to drop out of PhD programmes due to financial constraints prior to the amendments. The ‘academy’, as it is often referred, and indeed wider society, have lost out on a great deal of rich research because of this.