Disability Issues
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Eoin Hayes (SD), Dublin Bay South

The House should be aware that a protest will take place this Saturday against the failure to deliver the emergency winter payment. The disability organisations, despite meeting with the Minister and his officials several times, have called for that protest, which I will attend.
There is a conversation happening about a permanent cost-of-disability payment and I really welcome that as a direction of travel. However, there was no repeat in budget 2026 of the €400 payment in budget 2025. The Minister is saying that from budget 2027 on, there will be a payment. The lived experience of disabled people is that they had a one-off non-payment in budget 2026. I ask the Minister for the third time: will he withdraw his hurtful and disgraceful remarks about the lived experiences of people with disabilities? They were derisory and it was deeply upsetting for many people with disabilities to hear that is what the Minister for Social Protection thinks of their lived experience.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26