People power has won for disability activists and the groups who came together behind the campaign slogan ‘SCRAP THE GREEN PAPER’. Minister Heather Humphries announced the Green Paper will be scrapped on Friday 12 April in response to the clear call from the broad coalition of disability campaigners and activist groups which held a demo on 12 March just one month earlier. People Before Profit fully supported the call and Richard Boyd Barrett spoke at the demo. Bernard Mulvany, our candidate in Clontarf, is a cofounder of Access For All and is a key link between campaigners and People Before Profit.
On Wednesday morning this week, People Before Profit-Solidarity will introduce a motion to the Dáil that calls for justice for disabled people.
Due to ableist and discriminatory obstacles, disabled people are hit harder by the many social crises facing society. Disabled people are twice as likely to be homeless and more likely to be unemployed or underemployed, with Ireland having the highest level of unemployment among disabled people in the EU.
The motion, which was written in collaboration with disability activists and organisations, condemns the lack of Government support for disabled people and carers that results in one in five disabled people who are unable to work being condemned to live in consistent poverty with one in two in deprivation.
The motion includes a call to scrap the Government’s Green Paper on Disability Reform and was submitted to the Oireachtas before the Government’s decision to scrap it. The Green Paper proposed a cruel and discriminatory system that international experience has shown causes enormous stress for disabled people and endangers their mental and physical health by demanding they go through a job seeker process not designed for disabled people. The proposals would do nothing to lift disabled people out of poverty and if implemented would pressure many into work that is unsuitable.
People Before Profit member Bernard Mulvany, a leading member of the ‘Scrap the Green Paper’ coalition of disability activists, said “The scrapping of this Green Paper on Disability Reform is a massive victory for disability rights activists and people power. The proposals represented a ruthless discriminatory attack on people with disabilities and it is fantastic news that the Government has been forced to back down. This will lift a huge worry off the disabled community’s shoulders”.
Wednesday’s People Before Profit-Solidarity motion also calls on the government to:
- introduce a system of non-means-tested universal payments that cover the real costs of having a disability and provide income security to disabled people.
- introduce a guaranteed living wage for carers that is not means tested.
- massively expand personal assistance hours as a right to ensure that there is personal assistance to all who need it to study, work, socialise and live a full life; guarantee that all personal assistants have decent pay and conditions.
- immediately ratify the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
- introduce a constitutional amendment to assert equality for disabled people and to guarantee for all the right to supports needed to fully engage in society as a basic democratic right.
The motion will be debated for two hours, starting just before 10am on Wednesday, and the motion will be voted on Wednesday evening.
The full People Before Profit-Solidarity motion can be viewed here.