NCBI Pre Budget Submission 2005
Release Date: Nov 8th, 2005
The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) offers services to vision impaired people to promote their full independence and minimise the disabling effects of vision impairment.
The full text of the submission is detailed below but the key points include the following recommendations:
· removing the means test for the Blind Persons’ Pension;
· increasing the Blind Persons’ Tax Credits to €1,500 and €3,000 for a single person and married couple respectively; and
· extending telecommunications subsidy to include broadband in light of the importance of computers to the lives of people with vision impairments.
NCBI welcomes the proposals in Transport 21 but calls on the Government to improve transport for vision impaired people by:
· extending concessionary travel to vision impaired car users; and
· extending mobility allowance to include taxis.
Following the submission of the paper to Government, Des Kenny, NCBI's Chief Executive, said:
"Almost 10,000 people are officially classified as blind or vision impaired in Ireland but there may be as many as 48,000 others for whom sight loss is a major issue. Our submission promotes the interests of those we currently work with as well as those who are likely to require support and services over the coming years.
"The Government has the opportunity to build on the strong foundations laid in 2005 – the Disability Act – and make 2006, our 75th anniversary, a milestone for people with vision impairments."
For further information contact NCBI’s Head of Communications,
Notes to Editors
1. The NCBI (National Council for the Blind in
2. NCBI is a registered charity (No. CHY4626) and has been in existence since 1931.
3. The NCBI is established to promote the full independence of people with impaired vision and to minimise the disabling effects of vision impairment.
2005 PRE-BUDGET SUBMISSION
Introduction:
This pre-budget submission is framed against the backdrop of “The Disability Act” (2005) and the restructuring of health services into the HSE. A number of recommendations made here are reiterations of arguments made in submissions to previous budgets which have gone unaddressed. It is a request of Government that in this year, the year in which “The Disability Act” was enacted and the lead-in to the 75th anniversary of the founding of NCBI that government makes a special effort to respond positively to some, if not all of the recommendations contained in this submission.
Over 9,000 people in
As people live longer and grow older, their sight will weaken and ultimately diminish. NCBI represents the interests not only of the 9,000 people with whom it works, but is also concerned for the welfare and well being of the many who avail of no services at all. NCBI must also have regard for those people with low vision who are likely to require support services over the coming years arising from factors of life-style and ageing conditions.
NCBI is impatient to see service improvements made in the arrangements for funding services offered to vision-impaired people, and also in those statutory payment schemes upon which vision-impaired people rely to sustain themselves. The schemes are identified in this Pre-Budget Submission and recommendations are made for improvements.
Blind and partially sighted people, and their health-funded services, are perceived by the vision-impaired sector as being low in funding priorities relative to other disability categories. There is often a “disconnect” between the espoused language of “inclusion” and the in-use practice of prematurely shepherding people into forms of provisions which sometimes isolate people from and within their own communities. NCBI says that there is sometimes an over-emphasis in the creation of programme and design of schemes which favour centre-based provisions, including residential care, and these work against the NCBI ethos and forms of service deliveries of sustaining people in their own communities.
NCBI is particularly concerned that government should pay particular attention to ensuring that people with significant sight loss in their older years gain access to services which would have been available to them were they to be under the age of sixty-five years. Compartmentalising funding streams by programmes is leading to inequities which will only worsen in time if not addressed in the early years of the new HSE. Older people with vision-impairments should be entitled to an increase of service provision and, not as might happen, a reduction in them.
The eight recommendations in this submission are framed around submissions NCBI has been making in the course of our last Pre-Budget Submissions. We trust that our strategy of repeating and reminding Government will ultimately bring recognition for the arguments we present for improvements in core statutory provisions. NCBI also argues for funds to be released from the capital programme to meet the cost of improving the service provisions which are provided out of NCBI’s property at
National Council for the Blind of
20 October 2005.
PRE-BUDGET SUBMISSION FOR THE
2005 BUDGET
1. BLIND PERSONS’ PENSION
NCBI recommends that steps be taken towards responding to the higher than average living costs of people with disabilities and of blind persons’ in particular by paying the Blind Persons’ Pension regardless of means. Non means-tested disabled persons’ pensions are paid in many EU member states. It is recommended that this be phased in over a period not exceeding five years from the first year of commencement. The phased implementation of this recommendation should be commenced in the next budget by disregarding as reckonable means at least 20% of the Blind Persons’ Pension, expanding the disregarded means in subsequent budgets until the total pension is payable without reference to means.
NCBI considers that five years should be set as the time-scale for phasing out the means test on the blind persons’ pension. This recommendation is in keeping with research carried out by the NDA which supports a “Costs of Disability” scheme. Adjustments to the Blind Persons Pension could be regarded as being the beginning of such an arrangement, to be extended in subsequent budgets to other persons with disabilities.
Cost of provision:
NCBI calculates that the cost of meeting this recommendation in year one will be €1.65 million before the payment of income tax on aggregated incomes. The cost of meeting the provision, in full, over five years will be approximately €9.21 million with nearly half of this sum being returned to the Exchequer through the payment of income tax and the phased abolition of the Blind Persons’ Tax credits.
2. Disability Benefit and Blindness
Where an employed person ceases working because of substantial deterioration in their eyesight and where they become eligible to receive disability benefit as a result, NCBI recommends that the disability should be treated similar to an occupational injury. The resultant gain for the individual should be that he or she becomes eligible to receive an occupational injury pension until age 65 regardless of whether or not they were subsequently employed. Only where the person is unemployed would they receive both Occupational Injury Pension and Blind Pension. Where the person entered employment, the Blind Persons’ Pension would cease to be paid.
Cost of provision:
The cost of meeting this provision is calculated as being less than half a million in a full year. This half a million Euro is already provided for in the provision for disregarding means on the Blind Persons’ Pension generally but should, in this instance, stand alone as an immediate recognition of the needs of a small number of persons who go blind during their working lives and who could return to work with the removal of a perceived disincentive to work.
3. BLIND PERSONS’ TAX CREDITS (BPTC)
The changes in the last budget changed the Blind Person’s tax credit from €800 to €1,000 for a single person and from €1,600 to €2,000 for a married couple. NCBI recommends that the tax credits should be increased in this budget to €1,500 for a single person and €3,000 for a married couple.
It is recognised in making this recommendation that the linkage of non means-tested Blind Persons’ Pension and the Blind Persons’ Tax credits will see a switch from the negative income of the BPTC to the direct payment of a Blind Persons’ Pension that will be subject to payment of income tax. As the Blind Persons’ Pension becomes eligible for payment in percentages that disregard means, the credits for blind persons would be phased out accordingly.
Cost of provision:
The cost of this provision can be translated into the non means-tested arrangements outlined earlier (no. 1) in this submission. NCBI recommends the increase at the level sought to facilitate the funding of the non means-tested arrangement in years one and two.
4. BLIND WELFARE ALLOWANCE (BWA)
Steps should be taken to implement the transfer of responsibility for BWA from the HSE to the Department of Community and Family Affairs. The transfer should be used to create a new, increased, Blind Persons Pension. When the allowance was first paid in 1953, it was in recognition by the then Minister for Finance (James Ryan) of a 25% higher income requirement by blind persons’ over recipients of the old age non-contributory pension to which the blind persons’ pension was linked.
Cost of provision:
There will be no extra costs to the Government in making the changes as suggested here. Indeed, there may be a saving from the rationalising of payment mechanisms and combining them with the more cost efficient procedures developed by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.
5. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
NCBI also recommends that telecommunication charges be subsidised for blind and vision impaired persons and that the allowance for the use of the mobile telephone be further increased in this budget. The cost of broadband rentals should also be met for blind subscribers.
The recommendations made here are made in the light of the telephone and the computer playing an important part in the lives of people who are blind. For some, the phone is their only means of daily contact with friends and family.
Cost of provision:
It is difficult to accurately estimate the full cost of this concession in a full year as rental and unit charges vary from operator to operator. NCBI recommend that government allocate €1 million to these improvements in this budget.
6. Car and Mobility Allowance
NCBI has been drawing attention over many Pre-Budget Submissions to the importance of the car to the independence of blind persons, particularly in rural
a. Free travel concessions are generally available to all blind persons but this concession is useless where no public transport service exists. The family car is not alone the most flexible means of travel but the only means of transport in many areas of rural
b. We also recommend that 50% of the Mobility Allowance be initially extended to blind persons (free of means test) between the ages of 18 and 65 years to allow them avail of private transport services such as taxis and hackney cars. Even with the concession of free travel on public transport, many vision-impaired persons find that they have to meet the considerable cost of private transport in the course of living their social and working lives.
c. NCBI further requests that a vision-impaired person in receipt of Mobility Allowance who opts for the disabled drivers/passengers grant be permitted to convert the value of five years Mobility Allowance into the disabled passengers car grant. The Mobility Allowance would then cease to be paid to the individual opting for the car grant for a period of five years.
d. NCBI further recommends that the peak time travel restrictions placed on “free travel” be lifted and that beneficiaries of this scheme be treated equally with full fare paying passengers. We believe that the peak time travel restrictions no longer make sense and discriminate against persons who must use public transport for all of their travel needs.
Cost of provision:
We would estimate that no more than 200 people would avail of the converted mobility allowance to car grant at a cost of no more than €1 million over five years. The Mobility Allowance extension to vision-impaired people under the age of 65 years and over the age of 18 years at 50% of normal means tested rate would be approximately €600,000. NCBI believes that no income will be foregone by lifting the peak-travel time restriction.
7. SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS
The provisions of “The Disability Act” now guarantee communications in accessible formats. In order that immediate effect be given to support this provision with advice and support, NCBI requests a one-off grant of €500,000 to purchase printers and recording equipment.
Cost of provision:
A once-off grant of €500,000 would enable the NCBI to meet its desired objectives in special communications.
8. Special Capital grant:
The NCBI main
The re-build of the existing premises will result in the provision of an extra 10,000 square feet to be added to a similar square feet in a refurbished 180 year old building - providing custom built accommodation for new low vision clinics and service areas for rehabilitation and technology services. The capital cost of the development in 2002 terms is approximately €4.2 million. NCBI can contribute upwards of €1.2 million towards this cost but requests consideration for a grant of €3 million.
Cost of provision:
€3 million as a one-off grant. No additional revenue costs would flow from this provision.