DFI Calls for Action on Alarming Disability Poverty Rates

March 20 2025, 05:04pm

CoD

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today released its annual poverty data for 2024, painting a stark and sobering picture. This follows last week’s joint report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), which found that Ireland significantly underestimates the poverty levels experienced by disabled households. The report highlights how official figures fail to account for additional costs faced by people with disabilities, which drastically reduce their disposable income.  
 
In this context, DFI reiterates its longstanding call for concerted, targeted and urgent action to address the ongoing poverty that disabled people are pushed into by a lack of sufficient supports.  

Most crucially, we now need to:  

  • Introduce of a Cost of Disability payment 
  • Benchmark social protection payments to the Minimum Essential Standard of Living  
  •  Reduce other extra costs that disabled people and their families currently live with, to the detriment of their social inclusion, wellbeing and income levels.  

 

True progress requires addressing the structural and systemic barriers which continue to push people with disabilities into poverty. This includes: 

  • Improving access to health, social care and personal assistant services 
  • Ensuring medical cards are granted based on their needs 
  • Integrating and improving provision of key services such as transport and housing 
  • Removing barriers to employment and decent work. 

Alarming 2024 Poverty figures from the CSO 

For people unable to work due to long-standing health problem (disability): 

  • 1 in 5 (19%) live in consistent poverty, nearly four times the national average of 5%.  
  • 2 in 5 (38.5%) live in enforced deprivation, unable to afford essentials like heating or new clothes - compared to the national average of 15.7%.  
  • The at risk of poverty rate increased by 5% last year to 32.5%, compared to 5.4% of employed people, and 13.3% of those who are retired. 
  • Excluding the one-off cost of living measures, the at risk of poverty rate would actually be 37.4%. 

Once again disabled people’s poverty rates are 2.5 to 4 times the national average. In particular the consistent poverty rates of people unable to work due to long-standing health problems (disability) last year was almost 4 times higher than the national average. Not only that, but the data show that disabled people who rely on our social protection system to survive have the highest consistent poverty and deprivation rates of all economic groupings, and the second highest at risk of poverty ranking.  

Government must act 

Last week’s IHREC-ESRI report which showed that disability poverty rates are significantly underestimated, and today’s CSO figures, should serve as a wake-up call for this government.  

Elaine Teague, DFI CEO, said:  

“The government promised a ‘step change’ for people with disabilities in the Programme for Government, and to target social protection resources to people with disabilities. To deliver on its promises it should now tackle disability poverty on an urgent, emergency level. We couldn’t agree more with IHREC’s statement that “It is unacceptable that the majority of disabled people live in conditions of poverty in Ireland.”  

The IHREC-ESRI report examined the extra costs that disabled people live with on an ongoing basis, and the impact this has on their quality of life and risk of living in poverty or deprivation, and on the households they live in. It found that: 

  • Households with a disabled member “face significant financial burdens related to disability and have very high at risk of poverty (AROP) rates” 
  • These households are more likely than other household types to be at risk of poverty and have a lower standard of living than those without 
  • People faced extra costs in the range of €488-€555 on average a week  
  • Disabled households required between 41% to - at the most extreme level - 93%, extra disposable income to achieve the same standard of living as a similar household with no disabled members.  

Elaine Teague added,  

“Under the UN CRPD, which Ireland ratified in 2018, the State has committed to delivering an adequate standard of living for people with disabilities and their families, to the continuous improvement of living conditions and to assistance from the State with disability related expenses. But we’re not currently delivering on this commitment – far from it.  

Even at the lowest extra cost estimated (€488), social protection supports are clearly deeply inadequate. The current weekly Disability Allowance rate is €244 – meaning that in some cases our disability social protection payment covers less than half of a person’s disability-related costs, let alone all the other ongoing living expenses that everyone lives with.  

DFI has for many years called for a permanent weekly Cost of Disability payment of €50, as a top up to regular social protection payments, to start to address this inadequacy. The Programme for Government committed to such a payment, and this must now be a top priority for delivery.”  

DFI calls for urgent action 

The ESRI-IHREC report and today’s CSO data release reinforces what DFI and others have been highlighting for decades – the urgent need for financial support to help disabled people and their families cope with the additional costs of disability. These costs impact housing, transport, healthcare, assistive technology, and essential services. Despite repeated warnings, Ireland continues to rank 20th out of 27 EU countries for disability poverty.   

Emer Begley, DFI Director of Advocacy said,  

“DFI has long campaigned for stronger action on disability poverty and the extra Cost of Disability.  

This report, and today’s SILC poverty data which shows that one in five people relying on Disability Allowance live in consistent poverty, and two in five live in enforced deprivation, again emphasises the need for urgent action on this long-standing issue.  

We must address extra costs in the area of healthcare and medicine, housing, transport, services and other areas. This issue requires the ‘whole-of-government’ approach promised in the Programme for Government, and should be taken up as a priority for the new Disability Unit in the Department of An Taoiseach. It should also be a key priority in the soon to be published National Disability Strategy.” 

Key findings from the ESRI-IHREC report 

The ESRI-IHREC report released last week found that: 

  • The extra disability-related costs range from €488-€555 per week (€25,376-€28,860 per year) factoring in inflation. These are substantially higher than the range previously indicated in the 2021 Indecon Cost of Disability report of €8,700 - €12,300. 
  • Households with a disabled member require, on average, 52-59% extra disposable income, to achieve the same standard of living as a similar household with no disabled members.  
  • For households with a member who has severe limitations, the cost of disability can be as high as 93% of their disposable income. 
  • The at risk of poverty (AROP) rate is substantially higher for disabled people - 24%, compared to 10% for non-disabled people. 
  • When Cost of Disability is factored in, their AROP rate increases to between 65%-76%. 

 

Notes 

  • The Indecon Report on the Cost of Disability (2021), commissioned by the Department of Social Protection, provided comprehensive policy evidence that disabled people have extra costs across numerous areas. The report concluded that “there are significant additional costs faced by individuals with a disability which are currently not met by existing programmes or by social welfare payments [DFI emphasis]”. The report evidenced extra costs in the range of €8,700-€12,300, as well as unaffordable extra costs of €2,706 a year. However as the more recent ESRI report shows, its estimates predated the recent inflationary period, and in some cases were based on data from a number of years ago. To read the report see https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/1d84e-the-cost-of-disability-in-ireland-research-report/