Mr. Kenneth Fox:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today's meeting to discuss this very important matter.

The Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland was established in 1970. It is an organisation of people with disabilities and has approximately 5,000 members. As the name suggests, the founding members had a strong view that personal transport was key to fulfilling many of the principles now outlined in Article 3 of the UNCRPD. These include the freedom to make one's own choices, independence of persons, full and effective participation and inclusion in society, equality of opportunity and accessibility.

Throughout our 50 years in existence, we have campaigned on the disabled drivers and disabled passengers tax relief scheme and the mobility allowance and associated motorised transport grant. These are part of the committee's deliberations today. Having advised and supported thousands of applicants for the schemes we are well aware of the benefits they have provided as well as their shortcomings that put them beyond the reach of many with a genuine need. The schemes have their origins in the late 1960s, so it is not surprising that difficulties have been highlighted by the public, their representatives, the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court. Our vision, and the public vision, for a person with a disability has been completely transformed in this time. The principles quoted above represent only a small part of the vision outlined in the UNCRPD. The schemes represent the State's attempts to fulfil the requirements of Article 5, which states, "Specific measures which are necessary to accelerate or achieve de facto equality of persons with disabilities shall not be considered discrimination under the terms of the present Convention".

The mobility allowance has been suspended for more than nine years. Although it was a major support for the declining numbers who were in receipt of it prior to 2013, it is now a failed measure and a source of continuing inequality in that two persons with identical circumstances have different experiences. Someone who met the income requirements and acquired a qualifying disability in January 2013 may continue to receive it. Another person in identical circumstances who acquired an identical disability in April 2013 of afterwards is excluded. The mobility allowance shows recognition by the State that in order to achieve the freedom to make one’s own choices, independence, full and effective participation and inclusion in society and equality of opportunity, individually targeted specific measures on mobility are necessary to accelerate or achieve de factoequality of persons with disabilities.

While views are expressed that improvements in the accessibility of public transport and a broader availability of accessible public transport will address the needs of people with disabilities we argue strongly that personal transport measures are also necessary. The disabled drivers and disabled passengers tax relief scheme is the only remaining scheme supporting personal transport that is still open to new applicants. It has been very effective, as evidenced by its longevity, and provides support to around 15,000 participants. The scheme is, in principle, intended to fund the adaptations that are necessary for disabled drivers and disabled passengers. In practice it has provided general support to a disabled person to remain mobile. A simplified explanation of how the scheme works is that the tax relief provides a market advantage which compensates the disabled person for the adaptations employed. Provided full market value resales can be achieved with each vehicle change disabled persons can maintain their transport even on a relatively modest income. If people with disabilities on low incomes are in receipt of the mobility allowance this further helps contribute to the running costs.

At its height, the tax relief might have contributed relief of 35% of the cost of a vehicle. However, the scheme is very susceptible to changes in vehicle registration tax, VRT, and VAT policy, including the margin scheme, and new taxes such as the nitrogen oxide emissions charge. Thus, the allowances can be eroded or the market advantage reduced. The allowances are now closer to providing less than 25% of the purchase value of the vehicle in most cases.

Even when the scheme offered the greatest relief relative to the total cost, the applicant needed the resources to fund 65% of the cost of the vehicles. Vehicles with the least adaptation have wider appeal in the resale market and therefore achieve better relative resale prices. Thus, the scheme tends to favour those with the most resources and the least vehicle adaptation. The motorised transport grant was often used as a way of getting on the first step of the mobility ladder of the tax relief scheme. The uptake of the motorised transport grant was low, with about 300 applicants per annum and the word "grant" is probably a slight misnomer, as it was essentially a cash advance on the mobility allowance to contribute to the purchase of a vehicle. It should be remembered that as a means to get started on the tax relief scheme, the grant might only be claimed once. For subsequent purchases, applicants would rely on the tax relief scheme and keep their mobility allowance for vehicle running costs.

For those unable to access the scheme, a car purchased using the motorised transport grant might be kept for a long time. I am aware of one example where a car purchased with grant aid is now 14 years old. The Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland, DDAI, still gets inquiries from people seeking to repeat the process nine years after the mobility allowance scheme was closed to new applicants. The tax relief scheme has become less attractive to those with limited resources because of the greater initial capital required and the absence of a mobility allowance to assist those with limited incomes with maintenance costs.

The most recent criticism of the tax relief scheme has concerned the access criteria. These have changed little since the 1960s and select a limited number of conditions as approximations of those who might require adapted vehicles. The spectrum of persons with a disability needing a vehicle adaptation has broadened considerably, and this is what was demonstrated in the Supreme Court judgment. Necessary and expensive adaptations to enable disabled people to drive are not all related to the ability to walk and there are equally necessary adaptations on the passenger side that have more to do with environment and safety than mobility. Equally, because there is no correlation between the medical criteria and the extent of adaptation required, there is little correlation between the level of adaptation required and the allowances offered. The graduation of benefits is solely on the driver’s side, which is in itself iniquitous.

An emerging issue with the tax relief scheme is that its design is firmly rooted in fossil fuel vehicles, such as the fuel grant, for example, and its mechanisms are not well suited to the current tax structure for electric vehicles in terms of market advantage. Its direction of flow is counter to Government policy regarding motor vehicles in general. Thus, if Government policy is successful, disabled persons need to be equally incentivised to adopt electric vehicles. It is not intended to dwell on the importance of social interaction or access to education and employment because the whole population now certainly knows the experience of what a predecessor of mine referred to as being stuck at home beside the fire. It is, instead, more important to return to the necessity for personal transport supports, as distinct from extended accessible public transport. Anyone living in rural Ireland is familiar with the necessity of personal transport for access. When it comes to disability, however, the same can be true in an urban setting.

The DDAI is an administrator of the disabled person’s parking permit scheme under legislation for more than 50,000 permit holders. In total, between our fellow administrators in the Irish Wheelchair Association, IWA, and our group, there are almost 120,000 permit holders. We have some experience of having to operate within the constraints of legislation and regulation but one of the definitions in the context of existing permit holders is the inability to walk more than 50 m. It is unlikely that more than a small proportion of those permit holders live, work and are educated within 50 m of a public transport access point, nor is it expected that access points will or should be placed at intervals of 50 m. The fact is that for many the alternatives of walking, cycling or hopping on an electric scooter do not exist for a person with a disability. Equally, it is well accepted that there are those for whom public transport systems in themselves provide too challenging an environment. In this context, personal transport is an important and necessary alternative. Families and individuals have proven themselves as willing as any other citizens to invest in their own transport, but in many cases there are significant additional costs - in some cases more than the cost of the vehicle purchase itself.

If the State is to meet its obligation regarding specific measures which are necessary to accelerate or achieve de facto equality of persons with disabilities, supports need to be in place for those for whom public transport, however accessible, is not a viable alternative to achieving that equality of access. The experience concerning the mobility allowance has been traumatic for the community and the legacy of that experience is that, whatever the flaws in the disabled drivers and disabled passengers tax relief scheme, and those are great, it is currently the only support available. The greatest fear of those relying on the scheme is that faced with too many complications, the State will simply drop the scheme altogether. The suspension of the scheme for new entrants for some months, while unavoidable, did not allay any of those fears that a repeat of the mobility allowance experience was about to occur.

At present, combining the mobility allowance and tax relief schemes, fewer than 20,000 persons are supported in this way. In the United Kingdom, just over 2 million people receive a payment specifically related to mobility, which is roughly equivalent to 150,000 people in the Republic. These payments in turn provide access to other self-supporting vehicle leasing mechanisms, of which approximately one third avail. A targeted personal transport support system is needed for people with a disability. Equally, clarity is needed on who should be supported and why they need to be supported, as well as better integration between the needs of the individual and the level of the support provided.