Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Personal Transport for People with Disabilities: Office of the Ombudsman

Mr. Peter Tyndall:

I can, yes. I apologise that I was thrown out of the meeting for a moment. I love technology. It was so much better when we could all sit in a room and talk to each other, was it not?

Just coming back to the point, we are going to have some issues around adaptations, such as capital funding to enable people to have vehicles adapted. There are also other issues around the additional costs that people experience as a consequence of being disabled. The scheme must be able to reflect those issues. Between the two schemes, one helped people to get access to their own transport while the other helped them with the daily cost of transport. Any new scheme would have to retain those characteristics. Clearly, there has to be some measure of affordability. When rights are concerned, priorities come into it. Regarding access to resources, there needs to be prioritisation given to the rights of people with disabilities. That is what has troubled me. That priority has not been evident.

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