David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for their work and contributions. It is really fascinating. I get the sense though that we have taken the foot off the gas in this whole area for a while. I notice the national disability inclusion strategy has finished up. Do we know whether there are plans to start another one? If so, when will that happen? Also, who is driving this? Who is the champion?

I think Ms Shakespeare mentioned earlier the need for co-ordination. I know that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is doing great work in her area but I have submitted a parliamentary question on this, and it comes back to what Mr. Hannafin said about transport. It was answered in the past few minutes, which is really ironic and strange. The response relates to an issue that has been brought to my attention by quite a lot of parents who have children who leave secondary school and go on to work and other placements. Sometimes the children might have intellectual challenges. The big issue is transport. People are put on a bus and they get from A to B but then when they get off the bus and get to the place where they do their work is where the challenges arise. These are people with vulnerabilities and there does not seem to be any support there for that. I tabled a parliamentary question on that to the Minister with responsibility for equality and I received a response just now. He talks about the inclusion strategy finishing up and so forth and the Make Work Care report from the working group mentioned earlier. The transport working group that was established was particularly enriched by the contributions of stakeholders. That work has now concluded and the Minister states that his Department has no role in this, it is other Departments that are involved here. I am not sure about other colleagues but I get quite a lot of correspondence from parents whose adult children cannot get to work or on placement because of the challenges they have. Could the witnesses comment on this and are they aware of the transport working group and its report?