Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank each of the delegates for providing us with such interesting and comprehensive presentations. I have a specific question. It is a small one, but it is arises a good deal.

Growing children who are wheelchair users and perhaps have very severe disabilities, both physical and intellectual, often experience a long delay in being given a new wheelchair which may also be more advanced. Do the delegates have views on how families could be assisted in that regard? It is an important matter for them when they have a child living at home as he or she grows to become a teenager and an adult. Do the delegates ideas on how that issue might be addressed better? Certainly in my area, it can take a long time for someone to be given a new wheelchair.

We have quotas for the employment of people with disabilities, particularly young people who may have a physical disability, be highly qualified and are anxious to find employment. Do the delegates consider the quotas to be adequate? Do they consider they should be applied to larger places of employment in the private sector, as well as the public sector? There are many bright people who have a physical disability but whose employment opportunities are heavily restricted simply because they do not even get to interview stage. The Dublin Institute of Technology has taken a number of initiatives with a number of employers, but we do not have scale in the way other countries do. Do the delegates have proposals in that regard?

When I was in office, I spent much of my time encouraging the recreation of apprenticeships in Ireland, both new apprenticeships and, in particular, traditional apprenticeships which fell away in the financial collapse. I asked employers, both in the public and private sector, about providing apprenticeships for people with disabilities which, unlike in other countries, do not feature very much on the radar. Has any progress being made in that regard?

Regarding Ms Joan Carthy's comments on the personal assistant service, I was involved when the Centre for Independent Living was established many years ago. The first allocation of funding came from the then Department of Social Welfare. Do the delegates have views on where services should be located? Would it be better if over a period of time, they were moved to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection as in that way they would be part of income and life support, as opposed to medical support? It is not about people with disabilities being ill but about having a condition in respect of which they require support. I often felt like giving up on some of the detail in the Department of Health.