It also approved a new Social Allowance for Inclusion (PSI), with €264 a month to be available for all people with a disability or incapacity equal or superior to 80 percent, with no means testing.
“The base component will take effect already in 2017, it’s a component that has a dimension of citizenship, it’s awarded unconditionally, without any kind of assessment of other conditions, to those who have 80 percent or more incapacity proven and certified”, said the minister of employment, solidarity and social security, José Vieira da Silva, at the news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting in Lisbon.
The government is not only concerned with boosting disabled people’s income, explained the secretary of state for inclusion of people with disabilities, Ana Sofia Antunes.
“We want people with a disability, independent of the kind of disability ... whether physical, sensory or intellectual, to have the possibility of benefiting from the support of a personal assistant, of an aide, who can help them carry out tasks,” she said at the same news conference.
Anyone with a certified disability or incapacity of 80% or more and aged at least 16 are to be eligible for this support, but people with an intellectual disability, or who are certified to be on the autism spectrum or suffering from mental illness are, too, regardless of the degree of their incapacity.