The Green Party says it will seek several significant adjustments to the current level of social welfare to assist people with disability if elected.
Green Party finance spokesman, Dan Boyle
Finance spokesman Dan Boyle said his party is committed to benchmarking the lowest social welfare payment for a single person at half the per-person average household income.
He maintained the move would substantially benefit the income levels of those who live with a disability.
Outlining the party's disability policy in Cork today, Mr Boyle said the party recognised the extra costs of living incurred as a result of disability.
"We will introduce a payment of €40 a week to meet these needs which in return will allow for greater participation and equality."
Party leader Trevor Sargent spoke of one disabled couple whom he knew that were struggling to live on welfare payments 40 per cent below the average industrial wage. "In the prosperous Ireland of today, compromising the quality of life for these people is unacceptable," said Mr Sargent.
At a planning policy event in Dublin, Green Party candidate for Wicklow Deirdre de Burca said her party planned a national transport and land use authority, the removal of bottlenecks on town expansion and the provision of proper planning at a regional level.
Cllr De Burca said reform of An Bord Pleanála was necessary to improve public participation in the planning process - facilitating consultation, not conflict. "Our planning proposals are all about intelligent and sustainable development as these proposals demonstrate," she said.
Dún Laoghaire TD Ciarán Cuffe insisted Ireland's towns and cities would be able to prosper in a sustainable manner with the Greens in government.
The party's policies, Mr Cuffe maintained, seek to enable local and national authorities to make more intelligent planning decisions while removing the profiteering motives that have so blighted recent developments."