Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. People's rights are being infringed. The State ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, in 2018 and nearly five years later there is no transport scheme in place for disabled people. The disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme is extremely limited and only applies to a small number of very disabled people. We need more schemes. I was going to ask the Minister for an update on the publication of the report of the transport working group, and he has said it will be published shortly. I hope it will be.

As the Minister said, there are over 700 people waiting for appeals. I am constantly contacted by people asking when their appeal will be heard and I have to tell them there is no board in place to hear appeals. What resources is the Minister going to put into the scheme to help deal with the backlog of cases?

This issue affects people living in rural Ireland in particular because there is very little public transport as it is, never mind accessible transport. Local Link services are sporadic in terms of where and how often they operate. While people in urban areas may have choices regarding public transport in terms of buses and trains, people in rural areas definitely do not and they need schemes in place to assist them.

See this speech in context