Economic Changes
Moving to a rights based model obviously has economic implications. Indeed, one of the primary reasons that successive governments have so far refused to implement the UNCRPD is precisely because they also refuse to incur the extra costs associated. This is outrageous. Any society worthy of the name must provide services for all citizens to access. To move in this direction People Before Profit propose the following economic changes
- Increase Disability Allowance by €20 weekly.
- Introduce a Disability Tax Credit in the 2017 budget, similar to the Blind Persons Tax Credit (€1,650 in 2016)
- Provide an emergency Wheelchair Provision Fund of €37 million to support 15,000 mobility impaired people in Ireland
- Reverse all cuts (€160m, 2008-15) and increase the budget for disability services by €50m annually
- Increase the budget for the Personal Assistant service by €7 million each year from 2016 -2019
- Invest €50m in community support packages that allow a person with a disability / illness to remain living in their own home, if they so choose; (there was a reduction of €159.4 million between 2008 and 2015 in spending on disability health services alone)
- Invest €30m in the Housing Adaptation Grant scheme, and provide accessible housing for the almost 5,000 people with disabilities on social housing waiting lists
- Ring fence 8%-15% of the HSE disability budget governed by service-level arrangements (SLAs) to individualised and community based models of supports
- Ring-fence €3m annually to address the lack of care centres providing intensive neurological rehabilitation and therapy for survivors of severe Acquire Brain Injury
- Allocate 15% of the Fair Deal budget to providing nursing home and homecare services to under-35s
- Revise Carer’s Allowance, so this is not means-tested; safe and reliable centres should be available to periodically host patients in order to facilitate full respite for carers
- Grant medical cards based on a person’s medical needs, not on their income.
