Social Welfare Benefits
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-18
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

I will absolutely be bringing it to Government. I still hope to do so if not by the end of June then very early in July. That is a consequence of 1,100 people who participated, including three of the four political parties represented in the House at the moment. I cannot recall receiving a submission from the Deputy's party in relation to how it might work or with regard to making the tough choices as to how it might be paid and how it might be outlined. Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats are the two other parties that are represented here. On the day of the summit, we engaged with various groups to discuss how it could be paid.
To be absolutely clear, I cannot write the budget at this point. I wish I could and give the Deputy a guarantee on it. There will be very robust discussion, but I cannot make it any clearer that it is a priority for me to introduce a permanent payment and then to allow it to develop over the lifetime of this Government and future Governments.
We have people currently going through all the submissions to ensure that they are recognised, and I will be in a position to bring a proposal to the Government as a consequence of the budgetary process, but we are also very clear that we are going to engage with the disabled persons organisations, DPOs, and the representative organisations as part of that ongoing process. It will not be done in isolation.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18