Households in which there are people living with disabilities are being forced to spend the majority of their disposable income on measures to mitigate the disability.
As a result, they are more likely than other household types to be at risk of poverty.
That is according to a report, Adjusting Estimates of Poverty for the Cost of Disability, published by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) on Thursday.
It shows that households affected by disability have higher consumption needs, including healthcare and transportation, than other households, a factor which compounds their risk of deprivation.
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Because of this, households with a disabled member require, on average, 52-59 per cent extra disposable income to achieve the same standard of living as a similar household with no disabled members.
For households with a member who has severe disabilities, the cost can be as high as 93 per cent of their disposable income, the report found.
Disabled individuals and households also experience a double penalty to their living standards as their labour income is lower and consumption needs are higher, the report found.
Report co-author Agathe Simon of the ESRI said “income poverty rates are substantially higher among disabled people due in part to their lower employment rates. The consumption needs of disabled households are also higher, on average, leading to a double penalty in living standards.”
Fellow co-author Theano Kakoulidou said “one way to address the higher rates of income poverty among disabled people is by removing barriers to work” that they and their family members face.
“Income poverty could also be reduced by directly increasing targeted welfare payments or introducing a ‘cost of disability’ payment,” he said.
Liam Herrick, chief commissioner of IHREC,said it was “unacceptable that the majority of disabled people live in conditions of poverty in Ireland”.
“The State is obliged to actively support and resource disabled people to live independently, including through the provision of person-centred financial supports,” he said.
