Young people with disabilities protested at Leinster House today to demand restoration of the rehabilitative training allowance, which was scrapped by the Government last month.
As students across Ireland return to college, there is public outrage that young people with disabilities will no longer receive a vital allowance of €31.80 per week that supports them to access further education and employment.
Conor Dillon, 21, from Dublin, who is being denied an allowance said: “This is discrimination and I feel angry about it. I have written to Minister Simon Harris to ask for a meeting but he has not responded. I am not going away and I will not go away until he reinstates the allowance or meets me to explain why not.
“There’s a big difference now in the classroom. We should all be treated the same, whether we’re in a wheelchair or able to walk. It’s our basic human right to educate ourselves and in order to educate ourselves we need this allowance.
“I see this as a massive barrier for me and people with disabilities up and down the country. We just want to do the same things that our friends do.”
The students were joined by six disability organisations to urge the Government to reverse its decision. Research by Rehab has found that 90% of students on its training courses could not have undertaken training without the allowance.
Training providers are reporting that people who expressed a strong interest in starting rehabilitative training have not pursued this option due to withdrawal of the allowance.
