Mr. Pat Carty:

I am a member of the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers Association. I became involved back in the 1980s and luckily or unluckily enough, I qualified for a primary medical certificate and was then able to benefit from the disabled drivers scheme.

Coming from County Sligo, I thought that we had to have our own transport. In the past number of years, we have been involved with the wheelchair hurlers. I play for Connacht and know lads in Leinster. If I am in a wheelchair and another lad is in a wheelchair, we cannot pool together with the wheelchairs, as Mr. Douglas said about his daughters. It is vital that everyone is looked at. Everyone needs his or her own transport be it in a rural or urban area and this is vital. Mr. Fox, Ms Cox and Senator O'Loughlin have made great points here. We have to hand it over. The motorised transport scheme was great to get a leg on the ladder. In 1988, thanks to family members, we chipped in and got the money together to get me my first car. I then qualified for the rebate on that. I was on the ladder and now to think that it is all gone. It might only be a once-off payment that people need just to get on the ladder. It is sad to think that there were better provisions in the 1960s than there are in 2022.