Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The budget reneged on a key commitment in the programme for Government to introduce a permanent annual cost of disability support payment and then to incrementally increase it. We know that it costs a lot of money to be disabled in this country. A few years ago, the Department of Finance estimated it at around €10,000. It has obviously gone up substantially since then. Last year's €400 lump sum disability payment was a drop in the ocean but far from increasing it, as promised, the Government abolished it completely. It slashed other payments that disabled people rely on, like the living alone allowance lump sum and the electricity credit. Even taking into account small increases to the disability allowance, the Government still took well over €1,000 out of the pockets of disabled people. It is shocking in one of the richest countries in the world, with a budget surplus and with the cost-of-living crisis ongoing, that the Government made disabled people poor. That is not just in real inflationary terms but even in nominal terms.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12