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

I will start with the last question first. In recent weeks I have met community groups because sometimes I look at local links. I have looked at local links outside in Leitrim, Carlow, and at what they are proposing in the caring side of things. I have also looked at and met - the Deputy mentioned the Lucan group -Accessible Community Transport Southside, ACTS, and there has been a meeting with Vantastic. These are urban, are here in Dublin and provide an invaluable service. If I was to kite fly in the morning and to look for funding I would say that we certainly need to upgrade their buses because I do not believe that they can keep going at the rate they are doing now. We need to put them on a sustainable footing.

By no manner or means is that all within my gift but these services need to be put on a sustainable footing. I do not think that rolling from one dormant account funding to another is how one puts ACTS, which has so many services, the Lucan group and Vantastic, on a sustainable footing in the hope that there will be a piece of CLÁR funding coming in and they will get a new bus. One bus, when these groups very much need 21 buses, does not solve it. They have the design where they can actually accommodate four wheelchair users and their buddies. They can go out and it can be the normal way you would go about your daily life. You can bring your friends and go to the cinema. This is everything the rest of us can do but you cannot do it at the moment if you are to hire a taxi, because you will then have to wait until your other buddy gets the next taxi which is also wheelchair accessible.

That means that one provides funding on a sustainable footing, where the groups have the expertise and the design, and their design is integrated as part of the overall framework or national plan within the NTA and expanded to the community. One then looks at the point Mr. O'Shea has spoken of, where we have the gaps at the top of the nodes and at the end. That is what is needed because there are many dependent people in the urban areas where we have these groups. That is a sustainable footing. These groups have looked to my Department to come up with €750,000, the Department of Health to come up with €750,000 and the Department of Transport likewise. That would split it three ways because then there is an acknowledgement that there is a role for transport, for health and a role for "the rights of", which is the lens I look through, not the fact that a person has a disability but the rights of a person to participate in the community. That is their ask and that will enable their fleet to be redone. That is the funding ask I would have at this minute.

I believe that Mr. O'Shea's piece with regard to the mapping is essential. We have a great deal of work going on here with BusConnects, with our transport policy, in the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage and in the Department of Transport with regard to how we are designing our infrastructure. That includes our bus shelters, dropped kerbs, and everything else, but one can only map that if one has the whole picture as to what the current need is and the need going forward. One cannot do that on an ad hocbasis. It might be good in Galway but bad in Cork and one cannot have it like that; it has to be a proper standard. That is universal design in the environment. We are talking about where the Departments of Transport and the Environment, Climate and Communications need to come together on that piece. I am quite passionate about that because if it is universally designed, we do not ever need to retrofit it again because it has met the needs of all.

I completely take on board of what Deputy Higgins is saying about school transport. We have more issues of that this year than we have had in any year, from what I can hear. It is, of course, a priority for the Department of Education to ensure that everybody has access to schools but, predominantly, also, for persons with additional needs. There is quite a number there which are still not fulfilled and I will take that on board from today's meeting.

I am glad the NTA attended the committee and that it had a positive story for it but if the committee members were me every morning when I turn on my Twitter, I have to refer to the Access for All group, where the lifts are not working, whether it is nine or 11 lifts which are not working this morning. Sometimes, it may not be the lift but it may be the person being available to give the assistance to a person, or the signage may not have been working. It is not all perfect. A great deal of positive work is going on but for the individual user, and looking at the position on an individual basis, if that lift does not work, one cannot go to education or employment. The infrastructure has to be connected, working and functional because a person in a wheelchair or with a mobility need cannot run up that stairs to catch the next DART. That is the reality and impact of it. When we talk about employment and returning to employment, we have to ensure that the person has that connectivity piece on it.