Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. We are listening to people with disabilities. Last Monday, we had a very significant meeting with disabled persons' organisations in the context of the implementation of the national strategy for disabled persons and the action plan that underpins it. There were a number of Ministers present, and I chaired the meeting. Each Minister outlined his or her programmes in respect of the action plan, following on from the publication of the strategy some months ago. The whole purpose was co-design and to listen to and engage with representatives of various pillars of disability organisations in the country. There will be further meetings, which will be more thematic and which will relate to specific areas.
I established a disability unit in my Department to drive change across Government in respect of disability. We also have a Cabinet committee on disability, which I chair. There was a particular focus on the issue in the budget. At today's Cabinet meeting, we produced a budget spotlight on the measures taken in respect of disability. These include a 20% increase in services, the largest increase in disability services for quite some time. We need more, and we need to do more.
The special education budget is now over €3 billion. That has to manifest itself in additional classes, teachers, special needs assistants and therapies in our schools and it is doing so. Very quickly after coming into government, we were in a position to roll out the school therapy programme. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, is doing phenomenal work in special education along with the Minister, Deputy Naughton, as he did with the previous Minister, Deputy McEntee. We are very focused on establishing that programme in the early months of the new year before expanding it to all special schools in the next school year, during the period from September to January. We will then expand it further. We will continue to look at ways to improve the quality of education for children with special needs and how to ensure the right placements on time with the right therapeutic supports. We are also continuing to recruit for CDNTs and so forth.
The Minister, Deputy Dara Calleary, is working on the issue of the cost of disability. He is leading the strategic focus network on the cost of disability, working closely with disabled people and their advocates to shape how this payment will be designed and delivered. Several meetings have already taken place. The intention is to bring a proposal to Government in the first half of next year.
The bottom line is that we want to embed a permanent change in our payments systems and across all Government Departments. Once-off payments are no substitute for that. The once-off payments were introduced to deal with emergency situations arising out of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They are not fiscally sustainable in the long term.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16