Ms Sandra McCullagh:

I would like to address Deputy Imelda Munster's question around costs of disability and poverty. She specifically asked for three strategies and that is what I will provide. There are many ways of addressing the costs of disability. The three main approaches would be to increase income; to reduce the extra costs people experience; and to remove the disabling barriers that exist in society. In the context of our discussion about transport today, we can increase income by implementing a cost-of-disability payment. That would be a personalised payment to people with disabilities to address the extra costs that they experience in order to live an independent life. It would be a cost of disability payment.

The schemes we used to have, the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant scheme, were in essence addressing the extra costs of disability that people experience due to inaccessible transport. The implementation of the new Health (Transport Support) Bill is an important step, and that should happen as soon as possible.

The last and most important approach is to remove the disabling barriers that exist in society. Again, Dr. Kennedy has spoken much more eloquently than I on this topic. That is one of the crucial ways of reducing those extra costs. In the context of transport, that would involve the provision of a reliable, accessible and comprehensive public and private transport system that people with disabilities can access on an equal basis to others. Those are three concrete steps that can be taken to address those costs.