Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Lockdown has been a terrible experience for us all, confined to our own communities for weeks on end. However, some people have effectively been in self-isolation in their own homes for the past 460 weeks. Sadly, there is no indication as to when these restrictions are going to be lifted. We want the Government to provide the funding to establish a comprehensive set of transport supports for people with a disability as a matter of priority. These people are effectively being marooned and isolated in their own homes and they have experienced this for the last nine years.

Households with a disability spend, on average, more than €9,000 on items explicitly relating to that disability, such as unique versions of products, transport and mobility. These are additional living costs for people with disabilities on top of the dramatic increases we have seen in the cost of living for everyone else. The curtailment in supports for people with a disability in terms of transport have come on foot of interventions either by the courts or by the office of the Ombudsman. Because of the political implications of these decisions, the Minister of the day would have received a clear indication of what was coming down the track. The Government was forewarned yet we are still waiting, nine years down the road, to see any action. It is time now to implement a transport scheme that works for people with a disability.

Nine years ago, the Government suspended the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant for new applicants. It promised at the time that it would put an alternative, fair and equal replacement scheme in place. That never happened. The motorised transport grant was a means tested payment to help someone to buy a car so that they could retain employment. The mobility allowance was a means tested monthly payment for people who could not walk and could not use public transport. In her contribution earlier, the Minister of State was critical of us for not coming up with a solution. As her colleague, the senior Minister, clearly indicated, this is a complex issue and one on which I worked very closely with the former Minister of State, Finian McGrath. Alternative supports were proposed to Government at that time. Of course, sign-off was never secured. Deputy Leddin is right about the issue of universal design. Deputy Stanton and I have been campaigning on that issue for many years. It needs to be integrated into all strata of our society.

In June 2020, the disabled driver scheme was suspended. Again, the Government had been given the heads-up on what was going to happen. The scheme provides tax reliefs for the purchase and adaptation of vehicles. The terms and conditions of the disabled drivers and passengers scheme have never rested easy with Members of the Oireachtas. It has always been totally inadequate as a scheme and never met the genuine needs of people with disabilities. Instead of trying to address the nonsensical and extremely dated conditions of the scheme, the Government has just reinstated it in primary legislation. In order to be eligible for the tax reliefs under that scheme, the only scheme available at the moment for people with disabilities who cannot access public transport, they have to be without the use of both legs or without the use of both hands or both arms, or without one or both legs. If they have the use of one leg, then they can only avail of the scheme if they do not have the use of both hands or arms. Someone who cannot use their arms but can use their legs is denied access to it. This archaic scheme is in need of radical reform.

I accept that the Government is coming forward with a review of the scheme. However, we are hearing about review after review of it. We have no commitment on deadlines or that the recommendations that come out of the national inclusion strategy will be implemented in a timely manner. To be isolated in one's own home for 460 weeks is totally unacceptable. People with a disability today are effectively marooned in their own homes. They cannot participate in their own communities or take up worthwhile employment because of the lack of access to basic supports.

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