Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

What is guaranteed is that with the type of approach taken some Departments, which I can identify, of the six will perform well and others will perform poorly. That worries me because there is not one person in this Assembly who does not want to provide services to people with disabilities, except maybe the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, who believes that a little inequality is good for us provided of course he is not the person suffering the inequality. It needs to be said that the cumbersome way in which it is hoped this will be implemented will create considerable difficulty.

I will start at the beginning of the sectoral plans, although I know I will leave something out. At the end of the day there are fundamental facilities we all need in order to participate fully in society. I will not go through The Rights of Man or such like, but the matters are the same. We need, in this day and age, a roof over our heads, transport, income and a health service and access to those facilities as the fundamentals. Once one has those, other matters come into play. We need to be able to communicate. We need to be able to express ourselves through education and through fora in which we are listened to.

There are six Departments and six Ministers overseeing these sectoral plans, as good as they are. While I have no fault to find with the officials who wrote these sectoral plans and the type of research that went into them, the implementation of the sectoral plans will not work because there is not one central person responsible.

The Department of Social and Family Affair's plan opens with the blurb that it is the responsibility of the Department of Social and Family Affairs to ensure security of income. On that it will succeed, but one first must ask about income and whether it is adequate. We all know it is not adequate. For an able-bodied person, social welfare is not adequate. I am not certain we will ever get to the point that social welfare will be an adequate income, but a person with a disability — I am not necessarily referring to someone with multiple disabilities — incurs more costs, whether in respect of needing particular shoes, clothing which must be altered, additional transport, a particular diet, housing or heating.

The disability sector is not looking for €200 extra per week in the next budget, although it would be fine if they could get it. What they seek is a phased introduction of a cost of disability allowance. That cost of disability allowance should be an entitlement irrespective of income, but it most definitely should be an entitlement irrespective of social welfare on which a person is solely dependent.

They will introduce the advocacy service, but there is no analysis of the cost and of how people with particular needs will live on a limited income. That analysis is missing. Such analysis is available but it is not included in sectoral plans, even though it should be. The Minister of State outlined the total number of staff expected to be employed to carry out the assessment of needs at the committee meeting but how many have been employed to date? For example, how many psychologists, psychiatrists or other professionals needed to carry out assessments have been recruited? In which HSE areas have they been deployed? What is the plan for the future? How many will be employed by 2007? What is the Minister of State's plan to address unmet needs, about which Deputy Stanton has also asked? Where is the plan to assess the needs of carers? The Disability Act 2005 needs fundamental amendment so that, for example, the needs of all carers are assessed. Only when their needs are assessed will the Minister of State know how much home help and respite care provision is necessary. If a good job is being done to care for a person, he or she will not have such need but this analysis must to be undertaken.

Transport is one of my favourite issues. We also discussed the disabled drivers guidelines at the committee meeting and while it may be boring for the Minister of State to hear this issue raised again, it is essential that it be dealt with. It is almost impossible to qualify under these guidelines. The only people I have met who qualify did so 30 years ago and they are still driving. The professionals carrying out the assessment would like to make the grant available but the guidelines are so rigid that they cannot go outside them. That is down to the Department of Finance and not the Department of Transport. As a public representative, the Minister of State knows this needs to be examined. It is outrageous that the partner or spouse of a person who has suffered a severe stroke and cannot drive is unable to qualify under the disabled drivers scheme to drive him or her around when it clearly would be a major benefit to them. This must be addressed. People with disabilities would like to know when the Department will insist that taxi drivers who obtain a licence under special provision to operate a vehicle capable of transporting people with disabilities should do so. People in wheelchairs do not decide at 5 p.m. that they would like to go to town at 6 p.m. because they never organise their lives that way. When will the Minister of State have the guts to direct taxi drivers to serve this cohort of people when they have received advance notice?

Many lovely references are made to housing in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government sectoral plan but no action has been taken. At this stage, a percentage of all new builds should be set aside for people with disabilities. Many commentators say there are not enough people with disabilities in the State to engage in forward planning like that. However, that is not the case and many people acquire disabilities. In ten years, I will need a bungalow as opposed to a house with stairs. We all will at some stage and we should have the choice to move. The Government should not continually plough money into stair lifts but should develop alternatives. I will not go into the farce surrounding the disability grants section and stair lifts because it is a frightening mess. People on the waiting list are dying before their needs are met.

The Building Control Bill 2005 was before the Select Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government last week. It provides that people in wheelchairs will not be able to access buildings that are too small to cater for larger wheelchairs. When will that issue be addressed? Similarly, while access to toilets on trains has improved, trains are a nightmare to access for people in wheelchairs and it sometimes takes four staff to get them on board. Staff are helpful but they should not be in that position.

A new terminal has been opened in Cork Airport and I was staggered by it. Aside from the fight over air bridges, which resulted in only one being built, despite four being promised, when one alights from an aeroplane in the airport, one must walk up to one quarter of a mile to the new building. One walked the same distance to reach the old terminal but one entered it on the ground floor before collecting one's luggage and leaving. However, in the new terminal, one must climb two flights of stairs to the baggage reclaim area. We are all encouraged to bring our luggage on board nowadays and on the night I was in the terminal, an elderly woman in front of me had to climb those stairs while carrying her luggage. That is the essence of bad planning and the architect involved should never again be used. I assume the architect was a man because architects usually are but if am wrong, I apologise. Clearly, he thought that design was more important than access and it is outrageous that should be allowed to happen when designing a new building. While a number of people are supposed to be responsible for access, nobody took responsibility at the end of the day, and the same will happen with sectoral plans. Some will be very good but others will be very bad.

The blurb regarding employment and the sectoral plan in this regard are good but, at the same time, services delivered to people with disabilities in the community are totally dependent on FÁS and CE schemes. When will core funding be provided? The Minister of State referred to this in a previous contribution on this issue. When will officials be able to recruit, train and employ people without having to let them go two years later? A specific training programme is provided and such training is wasted under the current policy after two years. All the Minister of State needs to do is ensure core funding is put in place.

I worry about his statement that a monitoring body will be established because it is likely another quango will emerge. I agree completely with Deputy Stanton that service users must be centrally involved in the roll-out of the body. I do not want to be told in reply to parliamentary questions on sectoral plans next year that they are the responsibility of another body, which has no teeth and which cannot do anything about the failure to provide a service or to implement a sectoral plan. The Labour Party will amend the Disability Act 2005 in government to ensure people with disabilities have a right to services, which will not be delivered under the current legislation.

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