FF pledges €400m extra for disability initiatives

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has denied his party is engaging in auction politics as it announced a range of disability and inclusion initiatives that would cost more than €400 million a year to implement.

In Ennis, Co Clare, yesterday, Mr Martin said the party was prioritising people with disabilities and that the €413 million cost "is not an excessive amount, but that is the amount of money that is required. "We have to bring therapists into the schools. It is not acceptable that children have to wait for therapists. Every single item in this has been costed and the €413 million is within the amount of money that will be available to the next government."

As part of the policy, the Department of Education would directly employ a range of therapists that would be available on school campuses and school clusters across the country.

Mr Martin said that in addition, Fianna Fáil would improve income adequacy by €20 for those in receipt of disability allowance, carers’ allowance, blind pension and invalidity pensions.

He promised there would be a minister at cabinet level with responsibility for disability if Fianna Fáil led the next government, which would also ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the end of the year.

“Access to therapists in education is far too long,” he said. “The present system is not working and what we are proposing is a radical departure where the Department of Education, through the schools, will employ the therapists on the school campuses on mainstream as well as special schools.”

The party’s spokesman on mental health and disability, Colm Keaveney, said he would like to see an end to the series of reports from the Health Information and Quality Authority “condemning homes and care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. The day of warehousing citizens away from sight of community must come to an end.”