Tom Clonan: Disability rights in Ireland are in free fall — and new proposals will make it worse
Disabled citizens and their families and carers are treated with absolute contempt by the State, with sub-optimal outcomes on every measure — delayed medical interventions, poverty, social isolation, loneliness, ill-health and homelessness.
Last week, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys published a Green Paper on Disability Reform. Disability rights in Ireland are in free fall.
The ongoing scoliosis surgery crisis is emblematic of the broader neglect and abuse of the human rights of disabled citizens in Ireland.
Disabled children — like my own son — left for years on waiting lists for spinal surgery experience complications almost unheard of in other EU states and require more complex surgeries and often unplanned emergency interventions.
This leads to negative life-limiting and life-altering consequences for disabled children and adults — and can lead to fatal outcomes. This is not the fault of the surgeons and front-line clinicians who struggle to operate in this failed system — it is the fault of the HSE and the Department of Health, which, along with many other Government departments, fail to support the basic human rights of disabled Irish citizens.
The National Disability Authority and the Disability Stakeholder Group have recently published reports that show Irish Government departments are failing to make sufficient progress to meet the minimum requirements for disabled Irish citizens as set out by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
Disability services for children are in failure countrywide, with a crisis in the recruitment and retention of physiotherapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists.
Tens of thousands of Irish children remain on waiting lists, denied the necessary therapeutic interventions within the critical windows of opportunity with their age and development. This delayed — mostly absent — treatment leads to beautiful young lives denied their full potential.
The same is true of children and adults with intellectual disabilities, neurodiversity or mental health issues. In short — read my lips — Ireland is an absolute outlier in European terms with regard to the welfare, status and treatment of disabled citizens.
This group of citizens and their families and carers are treated with absolute contempt by the State, with sub-optimal outcomes on every measure — delayed medical interventions, poverty, social isolation, loneliness, ill-health and homelessness.
Against this context — which has been repeatedly highlighted by Disabled Persons Organisations, carers and families — Ms Humphreys has published proposals which, in my view, will further humiliate and harm disabled Irish citizens.
The minister proposes to target disabled citizens for "medical assessments" to "categorise" their disability into three levels — each revolving around a "capacity to work".
This is a direct copy of a British austerity measure – introduced by the Tories in 2008 – called the ‘Work Capability Assessment’ for disabled British citizens.
This punitive system has been brought into complete disrepute in the UK. This year, the Work and Pensions Committee of the UK parliament found there was a "pervasive lack of trust" associated with this system of assessment.
It is a Victorian system that sees disabled citizens in a negative light — as a cohort who require categorisation into groups of "deserving" and "non-deserving" poor.
It is the antithesis of a human rights approach to disability. It is also associated with a spike in suicide among disabled citizens throughout the UK and Northern Ireland.
This is precisely the system proposed by Ms Humphreys for Ireland. She proposes to do away with the Disability Allowance of €220 per week and replace it with a slightly increased "Personal Support Payment" to be determined by medical assessment.
At present, hundreds of thousands of disabled Irish citizens struggle to get medical appointments, or essential medical interventions — and struggle in poverty and crisis conditions.
In this context, Ms Humphreys proposes we squander precious, scarce medical resources on the proposed "medical assessment" of almost a quarter of a million disabled citizens. The mind boggles.
The department’s own Cost of Disability Report published in 2021 shows the extra cost in Ireland of being disabled ranges from €9,000 to €11,000.
This is before a disabled citizen pays rent or tries to feed themselves. The current Disability Allowance is €11,440 a year — and barely meets this additional cost of disability itself. Disability Allowance should be a universal, non means-tested payment.
This would also be consistent with our obligations under the UNCRPD. The appalling vista contained within the minister’s proposals should be resisted and opposed by every right-thinking Irish citizen.
It is completely inconsistent with the Government’s current — and expensive — PR campaign titled ‘Disability Rights are Human Rights’.
The Government needs to take four simple steps now. Immediately drop this harmful proposal to medically assess hundreds of thousands of disabled citizens.
Make the Disability Allowance a universal, non means-tested payment. Raise disability allowance to the PUP payment to take over 100,000 disabled citizens out of abject poverty.
Finally, Cabinet needs to fully ratify all protocols of the UNCRPD — as set out in the programme of government.
- Tom Clonan is a member of Seanad Éireann
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