The leader of the Social Democrats, Holly Cairns, has announced that the party considers the establishment of a designated minister for disability an essential requirement in potential future government programmes. Cairns has emphasised the party’s readiness to engage all political entities following the general election, with health, housing, and childcare as key priorities.
At the unveiling of the Social Democrats’ disability policy in Dublin, the representative for Cork South-West revealed the party’s desire to develop a weekly disability payment system and create an association, in collaboration with or inside the HSE, to take charge of service provision for the disabled.
The policy also proposes the creation of a fresh regulatory system to monitor service implementation for disabled citizens, including setting up a disability Ombudsman.
Currently, disability falls under the purview of Roderic O’Gorman’s Ministry of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Cairns stressed that disability issues need more urgent focus than they currently receive, necessitating a dedicated ministry to exclusively address them.
Cairns also indicated that her party would oppose the establishment of a Department of Infrastructure, a concept recently suggested by Taoiseach Simon Harris and Fine Gael.