Social Welfare Payments
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

Absolutely. We want to try to have a Department that helps people who have to manoeuvre through these conditions. One of my frustrations in public life is the way we silo people. That day needs to go in terms of the Department of Health doing one job, the Department of Social Protection doing another and the Department of disability doing another. That is why we are taking a whole-of-government approach to the summit on the cost of disability on 13 May. I am working with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and other colleagues to identify silos that are making people's difficult journey even more difficult. Those diagnosed with rare diseases have enough challenges to deal with without the State getting in their way and making that journey and challenge even more difficult. I am open to ideas from everybody in the House in relation to the schemes of the Department, how we design them and the application processes for them. We had a good discussion at the social protection committee yesterday around some areas and on how we can improve them. We are going to working on that as well.

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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