Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I met a father on a doorstep the other night who told me he gave up work two years ago to care for his disabled son. He used to coach two soccer teams but he no longer does that. His son is 19 years old, half my height and prone to injury. This child wishes to remain in education and needs special transport.

The acid test of any plan is whether it can offer hope to such a child whose father and family have given up a great deal to provide the best for this child. Unless we can look that child and father in the eye and say "Yes, we will deliver for you", we cannot say we are providing assistance to those with disabilities. This child simply needs direct transport to and from home to his place of education, but he is not being offered that.

We must think big on this issue in the way George Bush Senior did when he introduced the Americans with Disabilities Act some 15 or 20 years ago. He had a vision at that time — provision for the implementation of which he put down in black and white — that in five years' time every public building in the United States would be fully accessible to people with disabilities. That is the kind of vision we need from across the floor of this Chamber, but it is not there.

Far too much is buried in the small print and hidden behind bureaucratic fudge. I am concerned we are setting up complex mechanisms to deliver on the Disability Act. The timescales are too drawn out and funding for such provision is not clearly set out. I do not believe we can look that father or young man to whom I referred in the eye.

This issue is about simple matters. It is about being able to offer transport to a person with a physical disability. It is also about the provision of level access on footpaths and pavements of this city and elsewhere, ensuring that kerbs are dished and local authorities deliver on such provision and have the necessary funding to do so. It is about the provision of wheelchair accessible taxis. I suspect three quarters of the taxis that have come on to our roads in the past five years are not wheelchair accessible. That is an indictment of the Government. I accept it opened up the market, but the first thing it could have done was make sure that the new vehicles were accessible to those with disabilities. It is appalling that is not the case.

To borrow a phrase from somewhere else, the Minister of State should "just do it"; he should just make sure he delivers on the aspirations and vision that is required to improve the lives of so many people. Many of these people are hidden behind closed doors because they cannot go outside the door because the necessary facilities for them are not in place.

This issue is about the simple things. It is about allowing a father to give his son independence and allowing a 19 year old access to education. Unless the Minister of State can look that young man in the eye and say "Yes, we will deliver for you", he will have failed.

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