The National Disability Service Association (NDSA), a coalition of disability organisations which delivers vital services on behalf of the State to over 40,000 individuals and families, has welcomed the announcement of a €600 million increase in disability services, and a commitment to “permanent and predictable funding’’. However, the NDSA is eager to understand if newly allocated funds are to provide additional or enhanced services or to simply maintain existing levels of service provision. The NDSA is concerned that the targets Government set out for itself in the Action Plan for Disability will not be achieved and that long-standing structural deficits in disability services will not be addressed.
Moreover, as the Government released its first full budget under the new administration, the NDSA has expressed disappointment at the failure to include a cost of disability payment, despite the Programme for Government’s commitment to include such a payment with a mechanism in place to incrementally increase the payment once introduced.
NDSA has also flagged concern around the adequacy of an increase of €1.20 in the Wage Subsidy Scheme, given that this is the first increase announced for WSS since 2021. The WSS is one of the few Government subsidies to address chronic unemployment among people with disabilities.
The Government recently launched their National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People which promised a “whole of government” approach to disability. Unfortunately, this first budget since its publication, fails to live up to the ambition set out in that strategy.
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