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

It is important to say that the reason that charge is in place is to ensure that there is a service. That was the decision that was taken at an executive level and within the HSE at a local level a number of years ago. The Senator clearly outlined the challenge this is putting before families that have more than one family member who needs to attend a day service. It is on my agenda, I chair that committee and I work closely with Edel Quinn, with whom I have had those conversations. I compliment the local HSE as it did not remove the service for the service users and it did not find other ways of trying to pay the bill. It was totally upfront and it has been transparent but at the same time it is allowing people to have their full five-day service, as opposed to giving a five-day service where only four days can really be provided because the fifth day is being used to pay for the bus. As that goes on too, it is important to have an open conversation on this but I do not like the fact that we pay for it in one CHO and we do not in others. That is an inequality and the solution is to have more open routes. By having more open routes we have more accessibility for the inclusion of other people, not just disabled people, to access the service. Older people and people who need to go to appointments could access these routes as well.