Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Deputy is correct about the importance of being able to trace where the money is being spent. We hope that removing the €2 billion disability budget from the Department of Health and bringing it into the new Department will strongly enhance traceability.

It is still a significant sum, but taking it out of the existing €90 million budget will enhance the ability of committees and the public to see where it is being spent, particularly ensuring that we are getting outcomes for it, as Deputy Hourigan stated earlier.

I am happy to engage, as I stated earlier, with the Minister for Social Protection on the carer's allowance issue to see what simplification of the existing bureaucracy and speeding up of the process we can undertake there. I am hopeful that the creation of the network and the bringing into the policy and legislation-making process of the voices of disabled persons' organisations will make a real difference. Whether it is highlighting the fact that these process are taking so long or highlighting the fact that the parents of a blind child or an amputee are forced to undergo the indignity of proving the child's disability time and time again, these are consequences of a system that was about disabled people but not involving disabled people. One of the core points underpinning the UN convention is to preventing that. The network we are introducing is designed to be the practical realisation of that to bring those voices in. When the Minister of State and I are working on a particular policy, people are able to bring their lived experiences and point out that something is Civil Service-speak or politician-speak, that is not how things work and we need to change that particular element.

I recognise what the Deputy said regarding the different needs in transport. I think I acknowledged it when I was responding to Deputy Tully. I fully acknowledge that the needs of transport are different in different parts of the country.