Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In the Taoiseach’s capacity as part of the Cabinet Committee on Social Affairs and Equality, I have raised with him on a number of occasions in the last year the issue of Accessible Community Transport Southside Ltd., ACTS, which is a door-to-door, voluntary-run, not-for-profit transport service for people with wheelchairs. It moves hundreds of people who otherwise could not get out of their homes to go to doctor appointments, to get around, to have a social existence and who cannot use the normal public transport system. I warned the Taoiseach that it was going to go out of business for the lack of approximately €250,000. Despite the suggestions that something would be done and that it would be looked at I was absolutely shocked to receive an e-mail from that service today saying that it is winding up. It is gone. We see these ACTS buses all around the city. People in wheelchairs are already obstructed from having equality of access to life, to services, to their doctors and so on and now their service is gone because of the lack of €250,000 and the refusal of the Government to give them the money to provide this service. It is gone and finished. Next week, people who have doctor appointments will have no transport to take them there. They have asked again and again for specialised transport for people with wheelchairs, with severe mobility problems, with disabilities and so on, to be seen as an integral part of our public transport system and for that to be properly funded but because of a failure to do that, that service is now gone. I ask the Taoiseach what he will do about this because many vulnerable people now have no transport service. It is shocking and it is shameful.

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