Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I listened to the contributions and I remember being here when we heard from the Ombudsman in 2013 and the Minister thereafter when the scheme was suspended. As I remember it at the time, we were told that it would take a number of months, possibly until June 2013, to have a replacement scheme in operation. Given the complexity of the issue, I presume the time has been usefully spent, but to date we do not have any product by which we can measure that. I hope it will happen very soon. However, I understand that it will then have to go through the process already outlined. Heads of a Bill will be presented to Cabinet and then published. This committee will then go through the new pre-legislative stage. I dealt with another piece of quite complex legislation, the Gender Recognition Bill, which was substantially changed after that process. I would not say it was delayed, because I think it was a better Bill afterwards, but the process took nearly two years, if not more, from gestation. That is my concern. Even with the publication of the heads of a Bill, we could be two years away from a scheme being put in place to address the needs of those who previously would have got the two grants.

Has an exceptional needs payment been set aside in the meantime? There has been a saving to the Department since 2013 because the scheme was suspended for new applicants and I presume some people have died. There would, therefore, have been a saving for the Department of Health. Is that money ring-fenced? There are people who are in dire need. Is there some mechanism whereby they could apply for some of that money? My prediction is that this may take another two years, which would be a total of nearly five years of having to do without for those who previously got the motorised transport grant or the mobility grant.

Has there been any thought given - it might be in the new Bill - to moving these grants away from the Department of Health to the Department of Social Protection? It has been delivering similar grants which involve medical assessments. Would that be an appropriate mechanism? Would it make any difference in the future? The Department of Health has a limited or inadequate budget, as we know, while the Department of Social Protection has a budget which, of late, it does not fully spend. It usually sends the money back to the Exchequer. As the Department of Social Protection makes savings in the future, it might ring-fence funds to put towards this type of cost.

Have the officials any indication, after two and a half years of looking at this, of how many people would be applying? I see that part of the next phase will be trying to estimate how many people would be able to apply for or benefit from the new scheme. I presume after this length of time, there should be some guesstimate as to how much this is going to cost. Without being tied to a figure, we will have to be allowed some type of yardstick with which to measure it when the heads of the Bill are published.