Departmental Reports
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

-----to bringing that to finality, including the issue of an apology.
Turning to Deputy O'Sullivan, again in terms of disability and inclusion, we have since this report and the general election, established a disability unit in the Department, which manifested itself in the budget in terms of the domiciliary care allowance, the monthly allowance, going up another €20, and in terms of the income disregard for carers being significantly enhanced and the level of increases going up. In terms of the residential and respite area, the investment in the budget was an extra 20% in services. There are issues in the residential and respite areas. There is no doubt about that. We were at the Horizons centre last Saturday morning. I was there as was the Deputy and we heard first hand the issues facing many parents of children. There is then the issue of adults with disabilities and the future for them and how their elderly parents worry about that. A lot of our work in the coming months will be focused on residential and respite. There is the changing nature of respite as well, which I thought was an important point made by the Horizons group last weekend. I will certainly meet the Before We Die group and see how best we can address the issue. We do need to take the anxiety and the undoubted worry and stress from the parents and those who are going through that uncertainty and lack of clear knowledge as to the future.
Moving to Deputy McGrath, specifically on retailers, there is a lot of pressure on them. I think we have to work more with local authorities again in respect of the cost framework and cost environment. A lot of good work has happened on the public realm investments in terms of facilitating footfall and making city streetscapes pleasant so people will want to come into a town or city centre. There is also the active travel dimension but that too can restrict other aspects of access to city centres as well in terms of traffic. It is about trying to get the balance right there.
Deputy Coppinger said we had deployed huge resources last year. We did not. It was just human capital.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20