Social Welfare Payments
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
============================================================

John Paul O'Shea (FG), Cork North-West

I very much welcome that this consultation will inform the agenda of the strategic focus network summit on the cost of disability, which will take place in May and which the Minister will chair. I look forward to attending as Chair of the joint committee on social protection.
The Minister said that every support will be given in the interim to people with disabilities in terms of any immediate payments that are required. People with disabilities need to contact their local Intreo offices to make sure that any supports available through them would be made available in that time. On my behalf and on that of Deputy Noel McCarthy, for whom I am taking this question, and as Chair of the joint committee on social protection, I strongly encourage everyone with lived experience as well as organisations working in the sector to get involved in this process. We all welcome that the cost-of-disability payment will be introduced in line with the programme for Government commitment in 2027.

---

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/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26