Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It accepts the reality that the situation as identified by the Ombudsman is clear, that the court determined that the situation is as it is and as a consequence the Government has to deal with it. Tomorrow, for instance, the Government will publish the value for money review of disability services and the implementation framework, which will be broadly acceptable in the way that services are provided for people with disabilities. They have evolved over time and need to change very much further in the interests of the people they are supposed to serve. As the Deputy knows, there are additional moneys of about €4 million per day in the 2013 programme to provide day services for people with disabilities who are over the age of 18 and leaving school this year.

The Equality Tribunal found on two occasions that because the mobility allowance scheme is available only to people who are unable to walk, it discriminates against people with other forms of disability. That is the nub of the problem. There is also age limit applied to people between 16 and 66, the fact that the definitions now applicable to persons with disability are much broader than they were, and the evolution of services over the past 20 years, so that they have changed utterly. I repeat that a sum in excess of €10 million is allocated this year for both of these schemes, but the scheme is illegal and discriminatory, does not comply with the Equal Status or Disability Acts, and is outside the limits of our Constitution. We must make provision for a new scheme in which those moneys can be spent on people who need them.

The Deputy is aware that for the 350 people who received the motorised transport grant, the mechanics of their cars must be altered so that people with particular forms of physical disability can drive and have the independence to travel to the shop or the local town, as the Deputy said. For people in receipt of the mobility allowance covering the spectrum of definitions of disability, we now need to devise a new scheme that complies with the law and is conclusive and comprehensive.

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