Mr. Ciarán Delaney:

To answer the question about legislation, I will not make myself popular with people but, to be blunt, I have suggested to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport that a €500 fine plus three penalty points be applied to anybody in a private vehicle who parks in a disabled space, on a footpath, in a bus bay or in a bus lane. If it is a commercial goods vehicle, that should increase to €750 plus five penalty points. There is a simple rationale for that. If people do that, they will lose their licences quickly. What is even better is that if somebody has penalty points on their licence not only is the person hit with the €500 or €750 fine, his or her insurance premium will also increase.

As regards other issues, I would make it mandatory for all taxis be wheelchair accessible and to accept assistance dogs within a certain period. I would also insist that all buses would be low floor accessible buses. There is an opportunity for the committee to go on a fact finding mission to Turkey in October, when the European bus exhibition is being held. The NBRU has started a disability committee, which is welcome. It also must be recognised that the Minister took on a proposal made by Senator Dolan. The Senator apologises for his absence but he is at the United Nations today. I made sure to ring him and wake him up for the speech. When we had the discussion with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, he asked us how we would do this. I told him that a disabled person should be appointed to the board. However, a culture shift is needed. A certain percentage should be ring-fenced. The members' colleagues on another committee basically came together in a tripartite committee to help employment activation for people with disabilities. If there is an improvement in infrastructure, that will encourage people to get to work.

I made the point in my presentation, and Mr. O'Leary has reiterated it, that people on the autism spectrum need to be trained on a route. I will outline an example involving my colleague, Mr. Graham Parker, and I got permission to use his name. Graham has a son, Jack, who is autistic. Jack was shown how to get to his place of work. However, his family got a telephone call to tell them that Jack had not turned up for work. An alert was put out and Jack was found still waiting at the bus stop. When he did his training to familiarise himself with the route there was a single decker bus. On that particular morning double decker buses were allocated but the change did not factor in for him. That is my point about the change of the bus brand. It was explained to me earlier that the value of the Dublin Bus logo and its fleet colours or livery is €30 million. It is proposed to spend €14.25 million on redesigning and recalibrating buses in Dublin. There are 204 pages in the NTA livery book regarding how to use its logo and on the website there is one page with a link to the transport companies. I have the height of respect for Ms Anne Graham, and Mr. Dermot O'Gara, the head of public affairs, has been fantastic on helping and engaging with me. They are the main issues with accessibility.

Compliance with EU regulation is an issue. It provides that people with a disability should be allowed to reserve their seats free of charge. It is stated categorically that there is to be no extra charge. I am glad Dermot O'Leary took on board my suggestion about the social mobility pass when we were discussing improvements. However, I must give credit where it is due. In our first meeting with the Minister, we outlined our position and he recognised that everything we were saying was achievable. He is the first Minister I am aware of who has demanded that all the boards have disabled people on them where there is a relevance. Yesterday, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport started the interview process for Sport Ireland. The Public Appointments Service has been inundated with applications for Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, NTA and Bus Éireann. I have applied for one of the positions so, fingers crossed, a lucky board could have me working with it.