Group's views on disability allowance 'misrepresented'

THE ORGANISATION that first proposed raising the age of qualification for the disability allowance told Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin yesterday that its views were misrepresented in the Budget.

The threshold for qualifying for the allowance, which is worth €800 a month for disabled teenagers, was raised from 16 to 18 in the Budget. Ms Hanafin said she introduced the change as a result of a submission from the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies, which stated that the allowance risked creating a dependency on social welfare payments at a young age.

The federation, which represents voluntary and non-statutory agencies that provide direct services to people with disabilities, was one of four bodies that brought their concerns about the Budget cutbacks to Ms Hanafin yesterday.

The federation's chief executive, Brian O'Donnell, said the organisation made its "strong feelings" known on the issue to the Minister, but she did not indicate she would review the decision. He said it had been "unprecedented" for a budget submission to be introduced without any consultation with the body proposing it.

"We make submissions all the time to all types of different government departments on issues relating to disability and the next thing we heard of it was the Budget announcement," he said.

He described the Government's decision to adopt the recommendation, one of 59 it had submitted, as "opportunistic" and counterproductive, given that other recommendations it had made to benefit families were not adopted.

"We said it in the context of trying to remove situations where children are being labelled very early in their lives as being disabled and therefore unfit for work and unable to pursue other opportunities by virtue of them receiving this disability allowance and falling into a dependency trap very early in their lives," he said.

"But we also talked about the cost of disability to the family which was addressed in the other parts of the submission. Seventy per cent were about increasing allowances.

"The furthest thing from our mind was to create greater hardship and that was the net effect of this decision."

The meetings yesterday were also attended by the National Disability Authority, Inclusion Ireland, the national association for people with an intellectual disability, and Down Syndrome Ireland.

Inclusion Ireland chief executive Deirdre Carroll said there was a "full and frank discussion" of the issues involved in the domiciliary care allowance and she told the Minister that the raising of the age of qualification was a "huge shock" for affected families.

She urged the Minister to defer the plan for a year and to phase it in over two years, but only after consultation with all those affected by the proposed cuts.