Social Welfare Code
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Mark Wall (LAB), Kildare South

I thank the Minister. I have been on this for six years now and I spoke to his predecessor about it. She made attempts to raise this from 16 to 18 as well. The Minister has continued on that and we have had a number of conversations on it.
Recently we conducted a survey of almost 1,000 people and well over 900 of them wanted this increase. They wanted it because they are finding it very difficult to prove, in their opinion, that their child who continues to have the disability qualifies for disability allowance. Disability allowance is in essence a job-seeking payment and that is the problem here. When you have a child who is 16 and going to a special school or a mainstream one, it is so difficult to prove that child is not fit for work, basically. That is what the vast majority of parents we dealt with in that survey have said and it is why they are looking for this extension.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24