Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Private Members' motion and refer specifically to one exhortation. It is number 22 of 29, but it is there: "ensure every service on our public transport network is accessible for people with disabilities and impaired mobility".

I impress on the Minister of State - déanaim comhgháirdeachas leis agus cuirim fáilte roimhe ar ais go dtí an Seanad - that if the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is in delivery mode in the next five years, he should note that while technically much of our public transport is accessible, functionally and practically it is inaccessible to disabled citizens. We are fortunate in Dublin that we have such a proliferation of public transport, but Dublin Bus is inaccessible to many wheelchair users, for example, because when the buses leave the garage many of the ramps are not working. In a cost-cutting measure, Dublin Bus changed the rules around that and buses are allowed to leave the garage with ramps not functioning. That needs to be looked at.

The DART is practically inaccessible for wheelchair users for a number of reasons, including that the lifts are constantly out of order. This is recorded on a daily basis by such people as Bernard Mulvany from People Before Profit and his daughter Sophia. My son will never use the DART. We do not even consider it because it is inaccessible. If the lift is actually functioning, people have to ring 24 hours beforehand and arrange to have someone in the station with a ramp and the service has to be told when passengers will be getting off. Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus are putting in place investment to address these issues, but it is not happening quickly enough. In his delivery mode, I ask that the Minister accelerate that.

When it comes to regional bus services, the buses of many of the private contractors who were awarded the contract by the Government are inaccessible because it was not made a stipulation in the granting of the contract. Frankly, that is disgraceful. I ask everyone to think about this and imagine they had to make an appointment 24 hours before they travel on the basis of their protected category, for example, because they are LGBTIQ or ethnically different or because they are a Muslim. We would quite rightly be outraged. Citizens should not have to make those kinds of arrangements, simply to access public transport.

On a US state department programme called alternatives to political violence a number of years ago I was in the train station in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks in 1955 got on the bus and was excluded. That sparked a series of civil rights protests and eventually the US constitution was vindicated in that people cannot be segregated on the bus on the basis of their race. In Ireland, disabled people cannot even get on the bus. Rosa Parks was able to get on the bus in Alabama 70 years ago. People like my son cannot get on the bus or the train today. There is a lot of work to be done.