Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for letting me back in again. The Deputy started with day services and there is a huge issue there. It is not properly mapped or quantified and it is hit and miss. Going forward, we should start with the young people who need to avail of New Directions, our new day service school leavers programme for young people. It is something I am trying to get over the line and it is a funding issue needless to say, but we should ensure that every one of the 1.700 young people who come on board have access to the transport piece as part of their package. It should not be ad hocor at the gift of whoever campaigns, makes the loudest noise, is the most rural, or whatever. It should be just standardised so that when you are a parent and your young person is part of the school leavers programme, you know you can avail of it. That is one of the reasons I have got really into understanding how much money is spent on transport within the HSE. It is in excess of €40 million. We are spending money on transport. It is not like the HSE does not spend money on transport. I refer to the wonderful work Mr. O'Shea did in compiling the report we did on transport. We also see we spent €67 million on the primary medical certificate and another €10 million on the fuel allowance that goes along with it. We can see money is being spent on transport but it is being spent ad hoc everywhere. Returning to the Deputy's question, there needs to be a standardised approach, at least as a basis going forward, that all school leavers would have access to the transport at a minimum. It should be part of enabling them to participate in either the New Directions or as part of the school leavers programme. It should be built into the training scheme so that they can live independently in their communities as best they can. I look at Senator Clonan when I also take into consideration that this is packaged with the personal assistant, PA, support to enable a person to access that. We should be looking at that in the round and looking at everybody as an individual in order to meet their needs.

The Deputy also spoke about Garda vetting. That is not an issue only we have a problem with; it is right across the board. She spoke about bus drivers and where the deficits are there. I would love to say it is only within disability services but that lack of access to resources is right across a number of Departments. However, there are other people there who can make decisions either within the Department of Justice or in the Department of Transport in conjunction with the NTA. To be honest, the county council is quite right in saying it needs more rural hackney licensed vehicles that would be wheelchair and everything accessible but the NTA says it gives out one per county. That does not meet the need at all. There needs to be that acknowledgment too. I know in my area at home, and Deputy Canney's area of Athenry, I think it is one licence that is allowed in that area. It is not enough by any means. It may be only one allowed in the county. Definitely in east Galway, I only know of one in existence. Therefore, we need to have many more available and on stream and normalise this.

On the free travel scheme, this falls under the remit of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys I will not speak for her but I will talk to the mobility allowance scheme which falls under my own remit. I have an issue with that particular scheme. I will invite Mr. O'Shea in to speak on this. There are two sides to it. The scheme as we had it in its entirety was not functioning correctly because it did not meet the equality Act. At the same time, what we have done by cutting it in 2013 is removed people's opportunity to be included. It is an allowance of €208 a month. If you were living in rural Ireland and trying to hire those taxis, that money went towards a very valuable resource and actually gave you your independence. There is that piece. One of the reasons I convened the working group was to see what mechanisms we could put in place and what I could present to be able to stretch a larger envelope within a budget. People feel very hurt by the removal of that scheme. They feel hurt and disenfranchised and that was one reason we did the work on it. I have now done that work on it. An ask has gone. It is not a good day to ask me how the money is going. It is one of those things. We are trying to reinstate it. I ask Mr. O'Shea to come in on this because looking at it through the lens of why it was not working in the beginning is very important. We have to look at it in its entirely under the UNCRPD going forward.