John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Senator Moloney on her raising of this issue. I agree it is a pity that a Minister or at least a civil servant is not present to listen to our points. Like Senator Burke, I hope that this is the start of the debate and that it will not conclude without further input from the House. I agree with Senator van Turnhout's questioning of a number of the HSE's figures. It makes no sense that 19,000 people over 66 years of age have applied for motorised transport grants to return to work. We cannot even find work for people under 66 years of age. These schemes are designed for disabled people who are unable to use public transport. In many cases, public transport is not a viable alternative for them. In County Roscommon, 60 people avail of these schemes - 45 receive a mobility allowance and 15 receive the motorised transport grant. Pro rata, the figures in County Leitrim might be a little less. County Roscommon has the highest mileage of rural secondary roads in the country. While canvassing in my constituency, I drove down a two-mile byroad that only had one house, which was at the very end. If that person needed a mobility allowance or motorised transport grant, it would be laughable if she was told that the system was being changed and a service was being put in place instead. It will not work in rural Ireland. If the Department believes there is a way of getting around this problem, that is fine. There might be a way to tweak it for urban Ireland to provide a service. There was a big kerfuffle over rural transport, never mind transport that is intended to reduce rural isolation and get people out of their homes. We cannot provide enough transport for rural Ireland. The schemes' ethos is to get people in rural Ireland out of their homes, but the only way to do so is to provide them with the necessary money. It is a matter of connectivity with the rest of the world.

As a community welfare officer, I dealt with the two schemes in question. In the majority of cases, they are used to allow people to return to work. A friend of mine must travel 43 miles to work every day. No public transport system could be put in place that would be any cheaper than giving him a motorised transport grant every two or three years to trade in his car. I have seen the schemes' effectiveness. No working group, regardless of its cleverness, will devise a better system than the one that is already in place.