It is proposed by the Irish Government to categorize disabled people for the purposes of allocating social welfare payments. 

We the undersigned vehemently oppose this move for the following reasons:

1) it gives a message to the general public that disabled people are falsifying the nature and extent of their impairment or illness 

2) it breaches the UN convention on human rights for disabled people by using a medical model approach not a social model as enshrined in the UNCRDP. 

3) The lived experience of disability is of exclusion from the employment market due to discrimination and inaccessible barriers to employment. Thus 'tiering' into categories related to seriousness of disability will not foster increased employment of disabled people 

4) it objectifies disabled people with scrutiny of their ability to work based on their physical and intellectual capacity rather than the unwillingness and prejudice of employers to increase numbers of disabled people in their workforce. 

5) it constitutes degrading and humiliating treatment under the UNCRDP it will necessitate a personal assesment which will not include societal ableism which blocks disabled people from employment.

6) it assumes disabled people can overcome oppression and discrimination in the workforce and denies these barriers to employment for disabled people.

7) it sets out a categorisation of those 'deserving' of full benefits rights and those not. It is a value judgement.

8) it blames disabled people for seeking welfare benefits and sets up public resentment towards those disabled people who claim welfare benefits.

8) it will set disabled people against each other. 

9) it will result in thousands of disabled people without monetary resources for daily living and cause hardship, despair and suicide. 

We call on the Irish  government to reject this 'tiering' of disabled people and this proposed method for allocation of welfare payments which is diametrically opposite to the UNCRDP.