Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I thank Senator Byrne. On the primary medical certificate, the position is that disabled drivers, including primary medical certificates, are a matter for the Department of Finance. It has carried out a review, which will be progressed under the national disability strategy. The Department of Transport will also look at this. Senator Byrne is absolutely correct. As we have all said earlier, we all have examples from our constituency offices where we feel somebody should be getting this to empower them and to ensure they have their independence like anyone else.

The Department participated in a senior officials' group which examined transport supports for persons with a disability. This will be taken forward under the national disability strategy by the Department of Transport and the Department of Finance. This is what the strategy is about. It is not just one Department of disability doing things. The levers are with other Departments also. The Cabinet committee on disability will make sure these silos are starting to work together.

I am doing a number of things on the assessment of need process. We are trying to make the process more efficient and that we have more therapists coming into the system. An extra 150 therapists went through our third level colleges last year and we want to ramp up the number again this year. This is a whole-of-Government approach to making sure we are including everything we can to increase supply. We want to stop the demand for assessments of need where they are not required. At times there are certain Departments that inadvertently or potentially ask for an assessment of need for a service when it is not needed. This needs to be eliminated.

Senator Byrne mentioned issues regarding disability taxis for transport. Again, this is an important issue. I know the challenges with changing the existing fleet through regulation. Incentives were provided to encourage more taxi drivers to take up accessible taxis. This will also be part of the strategy with regard to transport issues for persons with disabilities. It is an area we need to look at for them.

Senator Byrne mentioned a very important issue, which is someone going into long-term residential care who should not really do so. They should be prevented where they have their own lives and a day service in their local community. Because of an emergency situation they were sent to residential care, away from their own community where they do not know people. This is exactly the type of issue I want to deal with, regarding forward planning, to ensure we budget for residential respite and day services to keep people out of residential care. We do this through empowering them through transitions.

I previously had responsibility for special education, and there are transitions from primary to post-primary and then onwards. This raises the question of a special school, training, a day service if that is what people want, or education. It is about enabling and empowering young people to live independent lives and to move into education, training or whatever it is they want to do. This keeps people living independently for longer. The Department of housing will have a role in this to ensure we provide more housing for persons with a disability. It is also empowering our service providers, including the HSE and section 38 and section 39 organisations in the voluntary sector, to be able to plan. We need to fund this to keep people out of long-term residential settings if they do not need to be there.