Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, who has highlighted well the efficiencies and positive work she and her Department officials are doing. They are clearly well up on the schemes. The Minister and her officials are very much on top of all these figures. A great deal of positive work is being done by the Department. From my perspective and that of this committee, we are aware of the positive changes in this regard, including in respect of means testing, etc. This committee's role is to challenge the everyday norms we see in our society.

The fact is that normality is not working for many people at the minute. As Ms Paula Soraghan from County Louth said on behalf of Independent Living Movement Ireland at a meeting of this committee a few weeks ago, disabled people have so much potential that society thinks they do not have, but the State does not facilitate them. It is about creating the choice. At the minute, they do not have that choice. The choice is not there. This committee wants to instil that equity and to make sure we put that equity into the system. I refer to equity as opposed to equality.

I have a number of points that I would like the Minister to take on board. I have a request, which has been spoken about by other members. My first ask, which Deputy Higgins has mentioned, is about the individualisation of reasonable accommodation grants. The Minister mentioned that it would be up to the Department, but people with disabilities who work for our local authorities are told to put forward a business case for assistive technology. They are then told that they do not satisfy a business case and they do not get that assisted technology. They are not granted it. They are left to stew. They do not have the ability to progress in their employment because they do not have the leg up, or they have to get that technology themselves. Most often, as so many people have highlighted here today, the cost of those disabilities prohibit people from being able to afford the technology themselves. I urge the Department to move and to change. The Minister said a little while ago that the Minister and the Department always want to do more. We are asking them to do things differently, along with doing more. This is about changing how the Department looks at the social benefits that are provided to people with disabilities, so that we move from a medical model towards the social and rights-based model of which Deputy Hourigan previously spoke.

For instance, there should be a move towards a care means test, as opposed to a financial means test, for carer's allowance. We need the individualisation of benefits to reduce a person’s dependency on another person. It was highlighted during our session on women with disabilities that people do not move in with their partners because they will lose their independence if they move in with someone they love. This is because their disability allowance would be means tested and they might lose it. They would lose that independence. The softie in me thinks it is heartbreaking that someone would not move on in a relationship for fear of losing their benefits because they would be means tested and would lose their independence.

I suggest to the Minister - I know that she and her Department would be very open to this - that the personal assistance service should be moved from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection because these are social rights as opposed to medical rights and medical assistance. Personal assistance is not about medical assistance. It is about social assistance to be able to facilitate people to take up jobs, go to the library, go out and meet friends and do all of the normal things that many of us take for granted.

I have mentioned a few challenges for the Minister, and I have many questions. I will mention another point that I would like the Minister and her Department to take on board. Although I do not expect answers today, I would really like the Minister and her Department to take them on board and to consider them. I ask her to open up the travel scheme and have a review of it to make sure it has more flexibility built into it when it comes to conditions such as epilepsy. If someone with epilepsy, for example, is not allowed to drive for a certain length of time, flexibility should be built into the system in order that he or she might be able to get free travel for a short period of time - perhaps six months or whatever the medical timeframe is - until they are permitted to drive. If they were able to get free travel for that period, they would be able to travel to work. They would not be taken out of work and that their life would be made a little easier.

My big ask is for flexibility and individualisation to be built into the system. We know that the system is robust. The Minister articulates that very well, as she does for all of the schemes within her Department. However, we want to build difference into the system.