Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I strongly support the two amendments tabled by Deputy Michael McGrath which are reasonable, contained and confined. Unless Revenue or the Department can show otherwise, I do not believe the amendments would constitute a mechanism that would facilitate the widespread abuse of the scheme. As the Chairman said, in terms of their quality of life and access to the ordinary activities of life which, by virtue of their disability, may be confined somewhat, these are enormous issues for people with disabilities and institutions and organisations dealing with people with a serious and permanent disability; as such, I do not understand the approach being taken. For many years I have assumed that it relates to a risk of abuse which has never been defined. If it is possible to receive some clarification as to what exactly is the problem from the point of view of the Department and Revenue, perhaps we might be able to fix it. The census and social welfare statistics and so on show that a significant number of adults and children have a disability. This means that the scheme which is not easy to access and not transparent and effective is putting another barrier and enormous difficulty in the path of people with disabilities. Like other members, I can produce examples where, in some cases, people eventually qualified but in others they have never fully qualified.

I would like to hear from the Minister of State on this matter. Time has passed and it is now possible to carry out a lot of data collection and identification processes. For example, the development of the public services card should allow for relatively easy verification. In the school about which Deputy Michael McGrath was speaking the parents of a majority of the children would be in receipt of domiciliary care allowance. In the case of adults, those concerned are receiving a disability allowance from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. There are ways and means to cross-check data. For instance, to receive a permanent or long-term payment such as domiciliary care allowance from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, whether for a child or an adult, there is a recognised medical evaluation procedure and a examination of the applicant's means. All of this process is now computerised and there are programmes which, with the permission of applicants, allow the cross-checking of their data which Revenue accepts for other tax purposes. Because of developments in the use of technology in the public service, I am at a loss to know why this is such a problem, given that it has been dealt with in other areas.

The Department of Education and Skills has also done a lot of similar work in the case of special educational needs organisers, SENO. There is a huge volume of work being done in the public realm that should allow much easier verification of these data. I do not believe preparation of a report, as proposed by Deputy Michael McGrath in the amendment, would in any way pose a threat to the budget. I cannot understand why it is not possible for the Minister of State to accept the proposal in principle and come back on Report Stage with his own draft of what might be acceptable. It is past time we addressed this problem which is an enormous one in people's lives, particularly the parents of children with a disability.