Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for tabling this motion on mobility and transport supports for people with disabilities. The calls made on the Government and the Minister of State in the motion are eminently reasonable and absolutely doable. The motion looks at specific barriers to mobility and transport that people with disabilities face in their everyday lives. This could be accessing their work, their education, their health needs, their social lives - as I said, their day-to-day lives, just like the rest of us. I listened to the Minister of State's contribution this morning and have listened to her previous contributions on this issue and I believe she is determined to put in place a system that is equitable for people with disabilities. However, we are a year and a half into the term of this Government and only now is the transport working group really beginning its work. Yes, the Government inherited a situation that is far from ideal, but that is its responsibility now and that is the situation in which we find ourselves.

Last year the then Ombudsman, Peter Tyndall, said that personal transport supports for people with disabilities are "inadequate, unfair and inequitable". That is an independent voice saying that, so we must listen and act. He spoke of the fact that his office, just like all our offices, receives constant complaints about all the mobility schemes, whether the motorised transport scheme, now entering its ninth year of suspension, the mobility allowance or the disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme. As signatories to the UNCRPD, we have a responsibility to provide access to transport on an equal basis to persons with a disability in order that they too can live independent lives and participate fully in all aspects of life. For any of us, life is not a dress rehearsal; it is today and it is now. It is the very same for people with disabilities. They want to live their lives every day just like the rest of us, but, because their mobility and their access to either transport or mobility grants or assistance are severely compromised or, in some cases, non-existent, they are left waiting in the wings while the rest of us get on with our lives. Time is of the essence. We need a sense of urgency and immediacy on this matter.

Just recently - last week, in fact - I read the final report from Indecon on the cost of disability in Ireland. One of the findings of that report that struck me very forcibly was that the costs relating to transport and mobility were so significant for people. For example, the average extra yearly living cost due to disability that persons with disability could not afford - and the crucial point is that they could not afford them - under the heading of transport was over €3,000 per year. While the survey showed that the highest costs incurred by people with disabilities related to access to adequate housing, the second highest related to trying to access transport and mobility support. We therefore have had, as far back as 2012, the then Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, telling us the motorised transport grant was not fit for purpose, we have had many interventions from the Ombudsman's office in the intervening years, we have had report after report, culminating in the cost of disability report last November, but people with disabilities are still waiting. They wait while the rest of us move on, get on with our lives and fly by them. It is the Minister of State's responsibility to change fundamentally that situation.

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