Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the national human rights strategy for disabled people. Of course, it has long been awaited and many disability organisations have been campaigning for its publication. It is the first strategy since Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was way back in 2018. I welcome the fact, as the Minister herself said, that the strategy has taken a whole-of-government approach to progressing the rights of people with disabilities. This is an acknowledgement that disability is not just the concern or responsibility of one Department but extends to many more, including health, transport, education and housing. However, we need to see the ambition from the Government to match the implementation of this strategy. This can be a turning point in Ireland's treatment of disabled citizens but every Department must step up to the plate. Disabled people face many challenges, including long waiting lists for services, in particular therapies and supports, high levels of unemployment and poverty, inaccessible transport and a lack of supports for independent living.

I acknowledge the strategy is based on five pillars that seek to address these barriers. I will address some of these, as a number of concerns have been raised by disabled people and their families with my office over the last number of years. We have recently seen that many local authorities, including the council in my own county of Kildare, have paused new applications for the housing adaptation grant scheme. As we all know, this scheme has been key in supporting older people and people with disabilities to continue to live in their own communities. If this Government is serious about supporting and enabling independent living, then we need to see an increase in this grant, with funding to the levels that are needed by each local authority to meet the demand that is there and to allow people with disabilities to continue to live in their own homes.

Special education is an issue that I have raised with the Minister previously. It is a massive issue for many people who come to me and, I am sure, everybody in this House. It is one, in my opinion, that the Government has failed to act on and get a handle on. My office is constantly in contact with worried parents who are struggling to find a school place for their child with additional needs. Even if they do get a place, it is extremely difficult to get school transport to allow the child with additional needs to get to their school. I have been working with a number of families trying to get a school place for their children with additional needs. I have been in contact with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, but I have as yet failed to get a meaningful response from that organisation.

I welcome the announcement today by the Minister that school place scheduling will begin four months earlier than has happened previously. I ask the Minister now, and will ask the other Minister later, whether this will allow parents to ring the NCSE, take the burden of 40 or 50 phone calls from them and allow, as I have always said, the NCSE to do the work and empower the SENOs, a point I have raised previously on many occasions with the Minister.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting St. Mark's Special School in Newbridge. What a wonderful school and what wonderful pupils and teachers in a wonderful setting for all those who use the facility. However, we in Kildare South have been promised another special school for a long time. I have raised this issue previously with the Minister and her predecessors. She will be aware that the special school that is there has been located in Naas, which is actually in Kildare North and not Kildare South. As the Minister said to me in a previous contribution, the demand is in Kildare South. That is why there should be a school in Kildare South. Is there an update on providing a school in Kildare South, where the demand is? Many parents are still travelling huge distances to bring their loved ones to school each day. It is causing serious issues for families day in and day out.

Regarding school transport, I am sure that, like my office, the Minister's office has seen a huge demand for school transport over the last weeks and months. This is particularly the case for those with special school needs. I am dealing with one family in Dunlavin, on the Kildare border, who cannot get a school place for their loved one. The problem is that they got the school place but they cannot now get the school transport needed to bring that loved one to school each day. This issue is replicated time and again. The Minister mentioned in her opening contribution the need to resolve this once and for all for people with disabilities. We need to ensure that transport is not a barrier to their quality of life.

I also want to bring up the issue of employment that other colleagues and the Minister have also mentioned. I have dealt with this with a lot of families in Kildare and neighbouring counties over a long period. We need to incentivise employers to provide those places that work for families and those with disabilities. It has come too late for many that there is no employment for them. I welcome the fact that one of the pillars in this strategy is to do with employment. It is long overdue that we concentrate on providing the incentives to employers to allow those with disabilities to get a sustainable job close to their home. In this way they can gain confidence, social skills and the pleasure of working in a particular form of employment. This has been lacking for a long time and it needs to come through this strategy.

Of course, we in the Labour Party support the strategy. We believe that it is long overdue and that the people with a disability who live in this country have the right to have the respect shown to them day in and day out. This strategy is a chance to have that done, but all it will do is sit on a shelf unless the Government is serious about ensuring it is backed up by that cross-departmental involvement over the coming years. I look forward to working with the Minister, as she requested, on the pillars that she has mentioned today. She will not find the Labour Party wanting on those pillars if the Government is serious about helping those with a disability and giving them the dignity and respect they deserve day in, day out.

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