Mr. John Dolan:

Now that the disability strategy has been announced, which I welcome, the real issue for the Government is not the strategy but the spreadsheet and who is responsible for it. The Taoiseach is responsible for it in an overall sense, but who is he delegating responsibility to? There was talk about a Cabinet reshuffle halfway through the Government's term, score cards and so forth, but a very good practical step which could be taken at the halfway stage is to install a man or woman in Cabinet with responsibility for disability inclusion. That would pull in issues from a wide area and would also serve the whole public service reform programme. Means testing is one area that must be tackled, for example. How do we serve the person rather than the system, in education, housing and other areas?

It is through education, housing, accessible buses, accessible buildings and income supports. With disability, we have an excuse to examine where the public service system does or does not work in rural Ireland and elsewhere.

Personal budgeting is part of the answer. It does not, however, deal with situations where there are no accessible public transport systems. Money in one's pocket does not solve the transport issue outside of built-up areas. There are certain things that can only be provided by a government. How a government does this, whether directly, through a public service licence or through a suite of ways, is important. Personal assistants, which we have had for 15 or 20 years, were provided through a personal budget, but this provision came under pressure last year. Mobility allowance goes back 40 years and it, too, is provided through a personal budget, although it is not called a personal budget. The motorised transport grant was also a personal budget. Ironically, these provisions were picked out in the past year. Fingers crossed, they seem to be back on track. This is almost like a social impact issue, but it is strange that it was as if it was decided a few bob could be saved in this area, but nobody was watching the overall impact. Personal budgets which give people and families choices are not new and have existed in the past. They were not called personal budgets and were not valued, but they must be part of the future. There is significant work going on now to put in micro supports.

In the old days, we had the big house - the institution. Then we came into the community with rehabilitation and various groups and organisations. That model is now being refined and we must decide how to provide a support structure around an individual, with IT support, HR support and help in decision making. We are trying to refine the process. Once one needed to be in an office, but now all one needs is a mobile telephone. We are trying to do the same for people. This will serve disabled people, but it will also serve many others and give them more autonomy and choice. This is the way to go, and while it is revolutionary, we should not forget we have already done it in an old-fashioned way. We can emancipate many through the harnessing of new technology. We can also harness good old-fashioned, as it were, neighbours who want to help. For example, an accountant might want to help a person with budgeting, another person might want to help with managing personal assistants and an electrician might want to help sort out problems with wheelchairs. There are many ways we can bring people in without having to define new grades and employment. However, we will still need core people employed to manage and broker the system.