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

I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

I reiterate the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman's earlier thanks to the Regional Group for raising today’s motion and for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important issue.

It is more that a year ago since we had this conversation here in the House. I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick for reminding me of the date. It was 16 February. I sent for my documents to see when I assumed the chairmanship and it was 20 January 2022. It had been under Action 104. The first meeting of it was to happen on 4 March 2020. We know what happened then. We had a Covid spell, and I took up the chairmanship since.

Out of that, the reason I took up the chairmanship was I listened to the Regional Group on that occasion. I heard exactly what they all were saying. As a rural Deputy as well, I think we are all on the one page. Whether it is urban or rural, we believe that people with disabilities have the right to access employment, have the right to access education and have the right - the same as everybody else - to get on the bus, the train or whatever. Even when we were talking about the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant that at that stage was no longer in existence, there was an inequality in how they were operated. I will not come against that and, therefore, I put together the working group.

From that, as anybody who knows me would expect, I marshalled the support of the Departments of Health, Social Protection and Transport, the HSE and the NDA. The Department of Finance came to the table, as did Revenue. What I insisted on doing was ask can we first and foremost understand exactly how much are we spending in transport under all the various headings. The stock take was as follows: we are spending €95 million on the free travel scheme. On the mobility allowance that we talked about, there are 3,325 availing of that at a cost of €7 million. The disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme - the VAT and the VRT relief - for 5,737 people is at a cost of €62 million, and the grant was coming in at €9.7 million. The HSE providing once-off funding for replacement of transport costs €8 million. The other part of it which the HSE never tell us openly is that it also uses in excess of €40 to support day service providers to get young people or other older people to their day service.

This tells me we are spending €212 million annually on transport for persons with a disability. The sad thing is we are still not hitting the mark. We are still leaving people behind and there is still inequality within it. I am the co-ordinator under the UNCRPD, but at the same time there is no one Department holding responsibility for the funding line and for ensuring that it is operationalised.

Last week in Leinster House, along with the Ceann Comhairle and others here, I attended a launch organised by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism and the Ceann Comhairle to make the Leinster House campus autism friendly, which I believe we all welcome. During that event, Mr. Adam Harris made the point that advancing solutions is not just having an awareness but also an understanding, which seems applicable today. This includes the understanding of the roles of Departments, the understanding of roles within the Civil Service, and the understanding of roles within the State organisations.

While the word "disability" is within my title and in the Department's name, not all disability issues fall under my remit, including the issues of transport. The Tánaiste, Deputy Martin, when he was Taoiseach, recognised that there needed to be more co-ordination across government when it comes to disability policies, which is why he sought the formation of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. However, there very much remains a role for a number of Departments to support disabled people to have access to transport. Hence, I read out the list of Departments I brought to that meeting more than one year ago. Within that year we have had our working group, the final report of which I hold here. It will not gain dust in any Department. It is now with the Department of Finance to address the inequality and address what is needed in the next steps. One Deputy had said we did not point to the next steps. It is for the Department of Finance to assist me to find the next steps.

While there are many Departments responsible, I do not want, nor does anyone here, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to be seen by other Departments and agencies as the place to fob everything to do with disability just because they see the word "disability" in my title. It is important for every Department to play an active role in disability. To follow that line of thinking would be to create mainstream services for the general population and separate special services for people who need additional supports. We cannot regress from the long-standing mainstream-first approach to disability policy. There is a real risk of this happening unless there is a clear understanding here, and across the system, that several Departments and State agencies have a pivotal role to play. This cannot be forgotten.

The Department of Transport is obviously a key player and has responsibility at a national level when it comes to making public transport more accessible, whether that is on the bus or rail network. The local authorities too have a responsibility to ensure we have active travel and smart travel, which was addressed by Deputy Lowry in his opening statement. Likewise, Revenue and the Department of Finance are central players in the disabled drivers and passengers scheme. While the medical assessment for the primary medical certificate is overseen by the Department of Health and the HSE, the financial side is implemented by Revenue. When it comes to the replacement for the mobility allowance, this is a matter for me to resolve. It is something I have been working on over recent years. Having criteria that work is important, and this is part of what I am trying to resolve with my officials.

Likewise, the HSE, whether it likes it or not, has a role to play when it comes to transport to and from day services in the same way it has a role in sorting out and supporting school leavers. Regularly come September, Deputy Canney and I see this, and I have heard others talk here today about school leavers. Deputy Whitmore spoke about a constituent who, for 12 months, has not been able to go to a day service. That is wrong. At the same time, funding is provided as part of the school leavers' package, which costs €34 million annually to support 1,700 people. Why is time and effort not made to calculate the cost of the transport? It is a basic need as part of the rehabilitative programme to be able to attend and learn the skills.

It is clear from the debate here today that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to transport issues. The transport needs of people with disabilities are as diverse as our disabled citizens are themselves. In the 2016 census, approximately one in seven people in Ireland reported living with a disability, which is roughly equivalent to the population of Connacht. People with disabilities are not an isolated group. They are part of all of our lives and all of our communities. As a Government, we recognise the benefits that developing open, accessible and joined-up transport and mobility support structures can have in meeting the complex and varied needs of people with disabilities and their families, carers, friends, colleagues and loved ones alike. That is why the concept of universal design is so powerful, an issue I raise frequently in the Chamber. Universal design for assessment, UDA, is not just a phrase. It impacts on local authorities, from the building of houses to doing the footpaths. It also impacts where the bus shelter is located so the person with a bad hip or with a wheelchair can access a bus. The colour of our buses is down to universal design so that people with a visual impairment can see them.

I am genuinely grateful for the work the Ombudsman has done to highlight the issues of transport and mobility supports. I am also grateful for the proposals and recommendations that have been advanced by the transport working group. The work and progress achieved by the transport working group under action 104 of the national disability inclusion strategy were extremely important, not least because the membership of the group included representatives from disability stakeholder groups, disabled persons' organisations, and other civil society organisations, which brought a real sense of lived experience to the group’s considerations. We must collectively value the work of the transport working group as the start of a lengthy and complex process requiring serious and mature political engagement and leadership on this issue.

The final report of the transport working group will be an important part of the evidence base that will feed into the development of the new national disability strategy, which the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, outlined earlier and which is intended to be ambitious. Mainstream-first means that as a society we must champion the inclusion of people with disabilities in all mainstream services to the greatest extent possible.

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