David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. The Minister understands and fully sympathises with any person who suffers from a serious physical disability and cannot access the scheme under the current criteria. Given the scope and scale of the scheme, however, any possible changes to it could only be made after very careful consideration and taking into account the existing prospective cost of the scheme, the availability of other schemes which seek to help with the mobility of disabled persons, and the interaction between each of these schemes. In this regard, the Department of Health is working on revised proposals for a transport support payments scheme to make individual payments as a contribution towards transport costs to people with severe disabilities who are on a low income and who cannot access public transport. This scheme will replace the motorised transport grant which was closed to new applicants in 2013. That is some bit of news.

I repeat that the Minister for Finance has no current plans to change the medical criteria for accessing the disabled drivers and disabled passengers (tax concessions) scheme. I note the following. In 2018, the total number of vehicle claims paid out was 6,422, the total number of fuel grant claims paid was 17,640, and the total monetary value of these claims was €70 million. Again, there are no plans to change but there will be some changes due to the transport support payments scheme being considered.