Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I accept that but the Minister with responsibility for the theatre should be told it is his job to watch out for that, irrespective of the building regulations. I feel for people with disabilities who have read about exhibitions and plays but who cannot attend them because the buildings are not accessible. Public transport is accessible by people with disabilities and they can get to the venues but they cannot go inside.

The Minister of State referred to the review and pointed out that a DFI representative could question a Secretary General about what the Department has done about A, B, C or D. There should be a subhead, such as those in the Estimates, labelled "disability" under which would be the money required by the Department for the next year to meet its disability obligations. The Minister must go a-begging to the Minister for Finance in an awful and rigorous process in which the Minister for Finance says "No" to everything. I have no complaints about this as it is the Minister for Finance's job to keep track. If he or she did not do so, this would be a wanton nation of spendthrifts. However, the disability subhead would not be touched because the Minister and Secretary General of the relevant Department would vouch that this would be needed if they were to honour their obligations regarding disability. The Minister for Finance would skip this subhead. As someone who has been reasonably successful when begging at the doors of Ministers for Finance over the years, it is a practical point.