Mr. Peter Gohery:

I thank Deputy Ellis for his questions. I propose a disability impact assessment of all planning in the future. I am told that many town authorities that are getting urban renewal grants are going to exclude disabled parking bays from the centres of the towns. We need them to access local services, including the post office, bank and chemist. Despite this, the authorities want to exclude the bays as they do not see them as being a good thing. If we had a disability impact assessment, we could say a plan was not fit for purpose and that we wanted to ensure we were included. There are already environmental impact assessments, so what I propose should not be a big thing.

On funding through the budget, there are a few things I would like. I would like to see the budget raised for people with disabilities. The realistic cost of a disability is anything up to €20,000 per year, depending on whom you are talking to. Not all disabilities are equal. I cannot speak for a person in a wheelchair or someone who is visually impaired; I can speak only for myself as a prosthetic wearer.

It is time we stopped buying our products from England. The UK is outside the EU. Products have to be shipped into England – we are told there is no tariff on them – and then they are shipped to Ireland.

The cost of a socket has gone up by 50%. What is going on is crazy, and it is all because of Brexit.

Every person with a disability should be awarded the medical card because of the costs out there rather than differentiating one person from another. Once we have a disability, we hear buzzwords like "inclusion" and "accessibility", but they do not seem to matter. It is only a select few who get it.