The Government has reversed a decision taken in the Budget to raise the age at which disability allowance can be paid to 18, after a number of disability support groups contested the changes and said they would cause hardship to families.
The announcement by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin today marks another climbdown on a controversial Budget measure, following changes to the scheme under which medical cards are provided to those over 70 years of age.
Ms Hanafin said the Government had “reflected carefully” on the concerns expressed by families and representative groups since the changes to the Disability Allowance Scheme were announced as part of the 2009 Budget two weeks ago.
“On the recommendation of the Minister, the Government has agreed that the existing arrangements, whereby disability allowance is paid to 16 and 17 year olds will continue, pending the completion of a full review of the Disability Allowance scheme,” Ms Hanafin said.
Ms Hanafin met this week with six groups representing people with disabilities and disability service providers - the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies, Inclusion Ireland, Down Syndrome Ireland, People with Disabilities in Ireland, the National Disability Authority and Rehab.
“At these meetings, the underlying principle of the Budget measure, i.e. that it is inappropriate to pay a social welfare payment to a 16 year old in his or her own right, was not seriously contested. The key concern expressed by the groups related to the loss of expected income at short notice to families of young people with disabilities,” Ms Hanafin said.
Following the meetings, Ms Hanafin said she recommended to the Government that the Disability Allowance continue to be paid to 16 and 17 year olds “pending a full review of the scheme”.
“The review will consider a wide range of issues as identified by groups representing people with disabilities and their families, by service providers and by research and analysis of disability and illness benefits by the OECD that is expected shortly.
“It will also draw on new data published by the Central Statistics Office last week from the National Disability Survey 2006.”
Disability Allowance is a weekly amount paid to people with a disability who are aged 16 or over and under age 66. It is subject to both a medical suitability test and a means test.
Ms Hanafin said the changes announced as part of the social welfare Budget were “designed to address concerns raised by a number of bodies about the appropriateness of paying young people a social welfare payment in their own right at the age of 16”.
Ms Hanafin said the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies in particular had argued in a submission to the Department’s review of the Disability Allowance Scheme that 16 was “too young” an age for such payment.
Quoting from the submission, the Minister said the federation had submitted that this “does not give an incentive for a child to pursue work/education options”.
“Subsequently a child may fall into the dependency trap too early. Instead parents should receive the Domiciliary Care Allowance for the child until they are 18 years old,” the submission said.
Ms Hanafin said the Government’s motivation in making changes to the scheme was to address these concerns.
“However, since the Budget a number of families have expressed concerns about the change and the fact that they had an expectation that the overall family income would increase significantly once their son or daughter reached the age of 16.”
Fine Gael social and family affairs spokeswoman Olwyn Enright welcomed the decision but said it should have been changed immediately after the Budget when it was pointed out how little such a measure would save.
“Mary Hanafin continuously staunchly defended this decision and even tried to blame disability bodies for her poor choices. It is only right that this vicious cut has been reversed."
Ms Enright said the changes to the Disability Allowance scheme would have saved the Exchequer less than 0.1 per cent of the social welfare budget while depriving 2,000 families of €13,000.
“However, this u-turn has once again shown just how wrong Fianna Fáil and the Greens got it on the Budget and how it is falling apart at the seams. The Budget was ill-conceived, ill-thought out and is now little more than a discussion document. It is clear that Mary Hanafin and her Cabinet colleagues have no idea what they are doing and, at this stage, Fianna Fáil stands for ‘flip-flop’."
Labour Party equality spokeswoman Kathleen Lynch welcomed the “climbdown” and congratulated the disability groups who campaigned against the changes.
“Under [the Minister's] original proposals, the monthly disability payment of €791.20 was to end for those aged 16 and 17, to be replaced by the domiciliary care allowance, worth just €299.60 per month.
“This proposal amounted to a mugging of disabled people and families who care for them, and would have cost them over €7,000 per annum,” she said.
She said the Minister had “swallowed her pride, saw sense and scrapped the proposal”.