In the 1990s and early 2000s, disability policy was marked by innovation – the Disability Allowance replaced the DPMA in 1996, shifting from a contingency-based scheme (with limited capacity) to a demand-based one (open to all eligible). There has been an upward trend in spending over the past two decades: disability expenditure increased from €825.9m in 2000363 to €4,448.6 billion in 2019.364 The 2021 annual expenditure on Disability Allowance is estimated at €1.8 billion.365 Whilst robust, recent reports point to deficiencies in the system, raising the issue of reforms and the future direction of the Irish social welfare system. Comparison with International Social Welfare Schemes From an international perspective, Ireland’s social welfare system provides robust support for people with disabilities and provides career support, while there is room to learn from other countries elsewhere. Ireland is among a minority of EU countries to facilitate long-term caregiving without any cut in a carer’s pension entitlements, this is a positive entitlement as carer’s can lose up to 19% of their pension in Latvia, and 22% in Slovakia.366 However, Ireland is an outlier in the northwest of Europe (if not in the EU as a whole), because public expenditure on long-term care is less than the value of informal long-term care given in the state,367 meaning that there is unpaid and uncompensated caregiving taking place. There is room for Ireland to consider increasing the Carer’s Allowance and increasing the amount of professional support for carers in order to reduce the gap between care value and care expenditure, and to bring the state into line with neighboring European countries. The cuts which Ireland imposed on social welfare during the economic crisis from 2008 to 2014 were also unexceptional by international standards.368 However, Ireland’s sluggishness in restoring social welfare payments to pre-Eurocrisis levels may mean that they are failing to vindicate the right to a minimum standard of living enshrined in Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The fact that the Pandemic Unemployment
363
DEASP, 2000 Social Protection Annual Statistics Report. DEASP, 2019 Social Protection Annual Statistics Report 365 DEASP, ‘Government publishes the Cost of Disability Report,’ 7 December 2021. 366 Commission, ‘Study on exploring the incidence and costs of informal long-term care in the EU’ VC (2019/0227) 122. 367 Commission, ‘Study on exploring the incidence and costs of informal long-term care in the EU’ VC (2019/0227) 16, 134, and 148. 368 Charles O’Sullivan and Donna McNamara, ‘The ‘Necessity' of Austerity and its Relationship with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Case Study of Ireland and the United Kingdom’ (2021) 21(1) Human Rights Law Review 157. 364
Page |104
