Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving the go-ahead to the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. It was a new venture and one appreciated for allowing that voice into these Houses. I thank committee members for giving me the opportunity to come before them tonight and engage with them.

I am aware that not all senior Ministers might come before the committee. One of the privileges I have is that I can knock on their doors to see how we are working for persons with disabilities. While I was sitting there I was thinking about that. One of the first people I managed to shake down for money in relation to disability was the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. There was a fantastic inclusion project that involved trikes. I was short €74,000 and the project was €150,000. I asked him if we could split it 50:50 and there was not a second thought about it. I got the €74,000 and now 56 trikes have gone out around the country. That was my engagement with the Department of Transport.

With the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, I looked for inclusion to ensure the voices of persons with disabilities were seen and recognised within the Housing for All strategy. To be fair, it is absolutely there and I thank the three Ministers involved. We decided not to put a percentage on it because we wanted to be ambitious that every housing estate which is built will have universal design within it, as Deputy Leddin said. We will ask and work with the county councils for that to happen.

I met with the Tánaiste on jobs and employment and he has put his whole team there to ensure the comprehensive employment strategies include people with disabilities. Not only that, but he has also put people there who can help me as I try to open new doors to increase employment opportunities. We need to embrace what the pandemic has brought in creating opportunities to work remotely. When he is designing the strategy around his digital hubs, we need to ensure we look at the spaces from a sensory needs perspective so people can work close to home to continue that opportunity. The Tánaiste was totally open to that.

I can only thank the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, for the funding he is giving me.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, gave me my first-ever applied green cert for a young person who wanted to go and do agriculture. He needed a PA, and also needed to take the course over an extra year. The green cert is over two years and he needed it to be over three years. The Minister and Teagasc approved that.

On education, transition planning is where the conversation is at on the Cabinet subcommittee with the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, the Minister, Deputy Foley and the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris. By starting this conversation with young people, we can ensure that when we talk about planning for young people who are in special schools, special classes and special rooms, they have a career pathway and we can meet their needs. The Taoiseach organised the Cabinet subcommittee on education. Now we are starting to plan the transition earlier, as opposed to waiting which leaves the only solution or light for these young people being day services. We are looking at the education and training boards, ETBs, and having further courses in numeracy and literacy. I acknowledge the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, in securing funding for Down Syndrome Ireland of €140,000 so it provide services through six other ETBs, with more to come on stream this year. That is really welcome.

On the higher education piece, young people need support. That is where I see the whole value around PA support. In this year's budget, €3 million was put into these services because we need to give people support. It is about the right to choose where to go to get education, the right to choose where to work., the right to know where they have the support and the right to engage in the community. The only way we can empower people is through that PA support. I acknowledge yet again the role of the Independent Living Movement Ireland, and particularly Mr. James Cawley, who continuously educates me and supports me on that. That is where that funding is going.

I must acknowledge my colleague the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. He has been absolutely fantastic and supportive all the way through because I straddle two Departments. I am not really in the Minister's Department yet. At the same time, I am two doors away from him. He has so been supportive on it. Deputy Wynne raised this, and the reason I have not moved is I am not prepared to go unless I have all the money coming with me. The transfer of functions is being written up at this moment. The legislation is being crafted on it. I could have gone 18 months ago. I must acknowledge the Taoiseach's vision for seeing why we need to move away from the medical model to the equality and inclusion piece. That was the Taoiseach's design. His only ask of me is to move it from one Department to another, and that is happening, but I am not going without the money. I am not going without the right understanding and the memorandums of understanding with the HSE as to how we work in relation to primary care, what the access programme is and what my aids and appliances budget is. There is €540 million in that, so I am not walking away from it unless I know I can get proper access to the proper beds, supports and wheelchairs people need.

Similarly, we talk about multidisciplinary supports. When that is achieved, if a child is coming through as part of the community disability network teams when he or she has hit his or her goal or got his or her delivery of service, it is about how he or she is integrated back into primary care again. Primary care is so important but it does not rest with me, so I need to know there is a proper understanding of it and a proper agreement. I am very fortunate that the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has given me really valuable funding for assessment of needs in the most recent two budgets. However, if there were two Ministers who could not get along, I need to know there is a memorandum of understanding on how that gets sorted out because we are still answering to a single HSE. It is not as simple as just lifting it and bringing it.

The energy is within me to work within the two Departments, but that is coming to an end now because the legislation is going to come before us along with the memorandum of understanding. It will go before the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for eventual sign-off to get the job done. When we move, we will move in our entirety. We will move with parents knowing exactly where the signposting is and where their services are so they are not left in a vacuum. Part of my frustration in the Seanad a week ago related to the fact that I am being told community Progressing Disability Services teams are being set up and I do not want to be told the files are not going with them. That is the piece I am trying to gel together at the moment.

A good piece of work I am doing, which the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has supported with funding, is on mapping disability services. Members should imagine a map of Ireland. It is like the ESB one with all the lights on around it. I want to map where my respite is, where my day services are, where the ASD classes are and where our special schools are. Deputies can imagine it overlaid on a map. Then it is about where we can bring in the connectivity so people, most importantly parents, can log on and see where their services are. Where are the 91 Progressing Disability Services teams all around the country? Which is the closest to my school? Which is the closest to the family home? It is that connectivity work which is going on. That is going out to tender before the end of the year.

I turn finally to my constituency colleague Deputy Canney and the autism innovation strategy.

I thank the Deputy again for bringing the Bill before us and allowing 12 months for me to demonstrate the strategy. He is correct that this strategy is no good unless it has a proper action plan that can be demonstrated and measured and we can hold the various Departments to account. The strategy will sit on a minimum of four pillars - housing, health, employment and education - and Deputies will see how I have engaged with the relevant Departments to date. We want to see where the roadblocks experienced by parents are, an issue raised by Deputy Wynne. We need to unlock all those roadblocks, which were in place long before any of us came into this House.

What my colleague, Deputy Leddin, described in his trip to the Netherlands should be our vision and ambition for Ireland. That should be so normal that we do not see the difference. We need to unlock people so they can access that. Transition planning is a key unlocking factor. The personal assistance, PA, support is part of it, as is active travel. We need to ensure county councils have a clear understanding of what active travel is. It is not just for people who are able-bodied and can access it; it is active, inclusive and universal for everybody in the community. We are very fortunate with the funding that is in place for active travel. It needs to be better accessed and councils need to move away from the idea that the definition of inclusivity is putting another bit of blue paint on wheelchair parking spaces. That is not inclusivity but it is their train of thought.

A few weeks ago, I put funding in place for my disability participation and awareness fund, DPAF. Deputies should see what has come to me from the county councils regarding it. It is about creating training and awareness in the councils. Their staff should know about that already, in addition to knowing a lot about disability. I should not have to use my funding, which is about inclusion, to repaint blue boxes. I want ambitious plans coming to us and to complement other funding that is already in place. I want to see that ambitious piece in disability, but I can only do that with the good work Members are doing on the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. Every week, they bring in a cross-section of voices from the disability sector, including advocates and representatives of disabled persons' organisations, DPOs, and various organisations. That feeds back to me because I watch the proceedings every single week. I compliment and thank committee members for their work. Finally, I wish Deputy Moynihan a speedy recovery.

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