Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2025-12-09 ============================================================ Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West I thank Deputy Cairns. The Taoiseach chaired the first meeting of the delivery and monitoring committee for the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, where we are trying to work on a serious of actions to make sure we have a step-change in the provision of disability services over the lifetime of this Government. Budget 2026 was the first opportunity to show our commitment to this strategy and if we look at the funding achieved by the Minister, Deputy Foley, in the context of the disability budget, a 20% increase in funding was secured, which will deliver stronger mainstream services and also targeted social protection supports for households with disabilities. The strategy is our roadmap to 2030 and sets out a series of measures that will be led from the Department of the Taoiseach. The Deputy asked about social protection in particular. That is why, as part of the overall budgetary allocation, a €10 increase in weekly social welfare rates was progressed in budget 2026. We have also progressed the highest ever increases to the child support payment, a €20 increase in the domiciliary care allowance and a €5 increase in the fuel allowance. People moving from disability allowance or blind pension into work will also retain their fuel allowance for five years and, where relevant, will now qualify for the back to work family dividend. The earnings disregard for carer’s allowance will rise in July 2026. We have taken a number of measures in the social protection package to support people with disabilities. We will also expand the wage subsidy scheme from April 2026. As I said, we have taken a number of measures to improve the fuel allowance. In the education system, €3 billion is being allocated to special education for children with additional needs. There are measures across the education system, social protection and the transport system, where the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has advanced measures. Some €25 million is being allocated for accessibility improvements, the disabled drivers and passengers scheme is being increased, and a co-designed new scheme from next year will make more people eligible. We have taken a number of steps across multiple Departments to try to improve the day-to-day experience for people living with disabilities. Central to that has been the funding secured by the Minister, Deputy Foley, specifically for her budget to ramp up the level of intervention that we make for service provision. That was reflected in the work programme and the work that will happen next year in terms of the overall level of support and service provision for people with disabilities. Obviously, the work is ongoing on the budgetary provision for next year for the social protection package. We will consider, with engagement with everyone in the disability sector, further requests around different support payments. You have to take the social protection package in the round, and we did increase the core welfare rates significantly this year. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-09