Disability Issues
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

Nice try, Deputy. The budget negotiations are ongoing. It is very important, and I very much recognise that the estimates of costs that are there. The first payment will not address all of those. The key issue will be to introduce the permanent disability payment. It will grow, as many other social protection payments have done, but we will begin the work on how we deliver that payment through codesign, partnership and as far as we can with the disabled persons organisations. There are many differing views as to how the payment should be delivered. My first job is to get it introduced and start the process immediately in terms of delivery and how that works. We will revert to the groups and to the submissions as to how we can best do that in a shared way.
In the context of the figures the Deputy mentioned, such as from the Indecon report, we will not be able to get that level in the first year of the payment but I am very aware of the cost. Like many other social protection payments, this payment will increase in the years to come once we have it introduced and the budget for it ring-fenced.

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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