Spiralling numbers of people, including children, being diagnosed with disabilities will have a “progressively significant impact on social welfare ... spending,” in coming years, a Department of Social Protection briefing document states.
The briefing note, prepared for incoming minister Dara Calleary, says a 71 per cent increase in expenditure on disability income supports from €3.5 billion in 2010 to €6 billion in 2025 has been driven by increasing diagnoses of “generalised anxiety and neurodiversity issues” including autism, dyspraxia and ADHD.
These now account for the “largest share of new claims” for the disability allowance, while the “broad nature of disabilities covered” by the domiciliary care allowance scheme means claims volumes “are increasing year on year”.
“Between 2018 and 2024, the number of recipients on disability allowance has increased by 19 per cent, and expenditure has increased by approximately 45 per cent,” says the note.
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A total of 167,000 disabled adults receive the weekly disability allowance of €244, at a cost of €2.4 billion a year.
Other disability payments include the invalidity pension to 56,000 recipients (€817 million); partial capacity benefit to 3,000 people (€24 million); blind pension to 921 people (€12.5 million), and the occupational injuries benefit to 14,000 people (€80 million).
Numbers of people receiving carers’ payments, including the carers’ allowance and benefit, are up 20 per cent since 2019 to more than 160,000 people, with expenditure up 46 per cent, to almost €2 billion a year.
Numbers receiving the domiciliary care allowance (DCA) have increased by 97 per cent in the past 10 years and by more than 36 per cent in the past five years – from 29,000 in 2015 to 57,364 at present. This non means-tested payment to parents or guardians of children with a significant disability is worth €360 a month. The cost is up 149 per cent since 2015 to more than €300 million a year.
With “much of the increase” in the payment accounted for by increasing diagnoses of neurodiversity issues among children, these are “of concern”, says the briefing note, because data indicates “more than 50 per cent of children in respect of whom DCA is paid transition on to a disability payment on reaching age 16″.
“Dependency on a disability payment is negatively correlated with employment take-up and positively correlated with poverty and social exclusion.”
A Green Paper on disability payments reform, published last year and intended to address the “big concern” that people with disabilities have some of the highest poverty rates of all cohorts and unemployment rates of more than 50 per cent – while facing higher costs associated with being disabled – was withdrawn last year “in light of negative reaction from disability groups”.
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It proposed merging existing disability payments into a single three-tiered payment, with tiers based on the person’s capacity to work. Those least able to work, in the top two tiers, would receive higher payments with those most able to work supported to take up employment while retaining their current payment.
Respondents opposed both tiering payments based on disability and also the requirement that people with ‘moderate’ disabilities engage with employment supports.
In April the Green Paper consultation process ceased.
Submissions were analysed and while they “generally agreed with the need for reform, to address the elevated risk of poverty and low employment rates among people with disabilities in Ireland ... there was no consensus ... on what this reform should look like”.
The briefing note states: “A national disability strategy is being co-ordinated by the Department of Children and Disability. The draft strategy has five pillars, with this department ... co‐chair to the employment pillar along with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment”.
