Disability Matters: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-22 ============================================================ Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West I thank the Acting Chair and all the staff in the Seanad for facilitating us in running late. It is really important that everybody who wants to contribute to this debate has the opportunity to do so and it is really important that I have the opportunity to listen to those views. I thank everybody who contributed. I have copious notes so I ask Senators to bear with me while I try to respond as best I can to the issues raised. Employment was first raised by Senator Byrne and was also touched on by Senator Martin Conway, Senator Tully and Senator O'Loughlin who reminded us of the success of the OWL programme. I really welcome that we now have had the first meeting of the forum on unemployment of persons with disability, convened by the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Deputy Alan Dillon. That is another example which shows that the issue of disability is now cross-departmental. Just today, I met with representatives of an organisation who expressed an interest in participating in that and I hope that will be accommodated. That is really progressive and a good step forward. In-school therapies were mentioned by numerous contributors. While that is led by the Department of education, it is a really significant intervention. That is now happening in many special schools across the country. It was ramped up quite quickly and we will continue to do that. I thank Senator Tully for reminding me that responsibility for the cost of disability is not in my Department. However, a lot of work is happening on that. The Minister, Deputy Dara Calleary, has recently run a consultative forum and a survey on the cost of disability. I know that survey has just finished and was live up to about ten days ago. The responses are being collated and the results will help form the cost-of-disability payment as committed to under the programme for Government. I certainly hope and expect it will be in the upcoming budget. Senator Margaret Murphy O'Mahony spoke very eloquently about the direction of travel being very clear. We have record investment and a genuine shift in policy. While I completely acknowledge Senator Clonan's frustration and respect where he is coming from as a parent, an advocate and a politician, I concur with what Senator Murphy O'Mahony said that there is a clear direction of travel here. I do not accept what he said around urgency because I see urgency every day. I see it with my Department officials and with officials in the HSE. I see it in the section 38 and section 39 organisations that I visit. I see the sense of urgency by our DPOs and organisations which are all working collaboratively. We have record funding. We now have strategic planning. We have new law coming in. Reviews have been announced of the two most significant pieces of legislation, the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act and the Disability Act itself. We have a disability unit sitting in the heart of Government, in the Department of the Taoiseach. We are recruiting people. Senator O'Reilly used the word "tangible"; that is tangible. We have new laws. We have policies. We have people. We have new budgets. We cannot do anything unless we have that. My officials, the HSE and section 38 and section 39 organisations have come together and successfully fought for that. That is what we are delivering on. Senator Clonan spoke about two pieces of correspondence. One was his correspondence to me, 0923 on 14 April. He should have received a reply and I suggest he checks his inbox. I got that triple checked while I was here. An acknowledgement went to him on that date. He also referred to a letter having been withdrawn. I have chased this twice with the HSE. That letter should never have happened. That letter should never have gone out. Nobody can stand over that. I have asked twice whether an apology was issued. I have been told twice that an apology has been issued to the mother of the young person at the centre of that. I have asked to see a copy of that apology. I was told, and I completely accept, that I cannot see a copy of it because there is personal information in it. I have taken that at face value. My understanding is that a letter of apology has issued and that happened a number of weeks ago, and rightly so. We were very clear that the letter should have gone out. My understanding is that it did. A numbers of Members - Senators Clonan, Sarah O'Reilly, Harmon, Tully, Kennelly and others - referenced the Before We Die campaign. I was at meetings this morning, but I understand that this morning's meeting of the Committee on Disability Matters was very emotional. I am not surprised by that because I have met that group twice. The first time was at their request. It was an emotional meeting. The second time was at my request because I asked if we could do a follow up meeting and if the HSE could be at that meeting so that we could have the right people around the table to be able to make progress. That is something that I am really committed to doing in this space. I thank all those people who are volunteering their time for this campaign because they are families who are already under pressure. They already have so many additional responsibilities compared with many other families, particularly people of that age, and they should not be in that situation. I am working with them and the HSE to help to resolve that situation for as many people as we can. I thank Senator Rabbitte for her remarks. I acknowledge the incredible amount of work that she has done in this sector and for people with disabilities and the tangible and real impact that she has had. --- 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/seanad/2026-04-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-22