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

I thank the Deputy. My Department is completely committed to ensuring that people with disabilities have access to transport, whether through the disabled drivers scheme, local transport or ensuring that Bus Éireann makes provisions for services for people with disabilities in its bus system. However, I have to be fair in terms of the working group. The Department of Finance attended the meeting and its representatives were very forthcoming on what it will cost and how we consider restructuring because it is restrictive. The current restrictive scheme, related to primary medical certificates, costs €64 million on an annual basis. That does not include other forms of transport which include disabilities. They cost hundreds of millions of euro. We are carrying out a complete review.

I agree the scheme is far too restrictive and does not take into consideration children with behavioural issues or people who have Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis. Such people have all their limbs, but may be excluded from the scheme. That is the purpose of the working group.

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