Seanad debates
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Disability Services
10:30 am
Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
At the outset I thank the Minister of State most sincerely for her recent visit to Monaghan, which was very well received. The feedback has been extremely positive. I wish to take this opportunity to thank her for her ongoing work within her portfolio.
This morning, I am urging the Minister of State to get the HSE to reconsider the transport charge that is being levelled at several juniors who are attending HSE day services in the community healthcare organisation, CHO, 1 area, which includes the counties of Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim.
As the Minister of State will know, disability is unfortunately strongly associated with poverty in this country. Among people who are unable to work due to long-standing illness, one in three live on an income below the poverty line. Among those who are able to work, many people with a disability are unemployed. This is a classification where more than four in ten people live in poverty. People with a disability are twice as likely to be unable to afford to heat their home. Much help is needed in that regard with rising inflation costs.
In fact, a study that has recently been compiled by Indecon on behalf of the Department of Social Protection has found that the cost of having a disability is between €9,482 and €11,734 extra per year, on top of everyday expenses. As the Minister of State will be aware, disabled people and the households that include people with a disability have to spend more on items such as fuel and light, transport, therapeutic equipment, medical expenses, domestic services, equipment aids and appliances, mobility and communications, daily living costs and care and assistance.
It therefore seems inexplicable that a transport charge has been applied to service users who are attending HSE day services at €4 per trip or €20 per week, particularly when this levy is being applied exclusively to the CHO 1 area, which includes the counties that I mentioned earlier. These five counties are arguably the most isolated counties with regard to transport infrastructure in the entire country.
The daily charge of €4 amounts to a total of €960 per annum for a person with a disability. Naturally, there is now a genuine fear in families that their loved ones may not be able to avail of the service simply because of the cost. That would be heartbreaking. I am aware of one case locally where there are two attendees in a family. That will cost them almost €2,000 per annum, which is a huge amount of money. On top of that is the aforementioned cost of living with disability. I feel that this charge is very unfair. Apparently, the charge has been levied because the routes are deemed to be closed routes or exclusive routes. People who are using an open route can use their free travel pass, for example, on Bus Éireann. Unfortunately, this does not apply to this particular service. The problem with the CHO 1 area is that the routes are deemed to be closed.
The simple answer would appear to be to extend the free travel pass to include these particular routes. Maybe that is too simple and I await the Minister of State’s response on that. There is no issue with the service. The service is top class but unfortunately, it is now getting to the stage where many families simply cannot afford it. I acknowledge that since the Minister of State has come into office, she has been a champion for people with disabilities. I now ask her to champion this cause on behalf of the service users of Monaghan, Cavan, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal.
Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I thank the Senator for raising this important issue and there is no pressure attached. It is important to state that the HSE has no statutory responsibility for providing transport to day services and that transport to day services is not usually provided for service users. At the same time I would preface that by saying that the HSE, under disability, spends in excess of €40 million every year on transport, while it provides no transport. I am trying to work that out myself and that is why I have taken ownership of the chair of the transport committee where I have put everybody around the table to look at all available routes. It is not only that but it is also to look at the primary medical certificates, the blue badge and everything.
There is an inequality in CHO 1. It charges €4 per day and the Senator is right that it is a closed route option. It is not part of the open routes and if it was part of that, there would be no charge whatsoever on it. On the other hand I have to compliment CHO 1 for doing this. It meant that no service user lost a day service. In other CHOs they have paid for the transport and reduced the service users' attendance at the day services whereas in Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan they came up with the €4 per day charge in order that people would not lose access to their day services, which was a balancing measure. I do not think that was right and transport is being provided for people attending day services in other CHOs, so why would it not be provided equally and on the same basis in all CHOs? It is the only CHO in the country where you have to pay €4.
In Leitrim, the Local Link has been running a pilot, which has been positive, and we need to see that expanded. We need to move away from closed routes to open routes and those open routes have a benefit for the climate and the locality. Such a HSE open routes model could be used for older persons as well as for persons with a disability. It could also possibly be used for people who need to access a medical appointment. They could all be accommodated within the same running time as opposed to running the bus first thing in the morning just for the disability service, then running it later on in the day to go to the day centre with older persons and perhaps running it later on in the day for people who need hospital appointments. A little bit more collaboration and joined-up thinking is what is required in order that we can have open routes, which would be funded through the Department of Transport. The Department of Transport needs to do that because there needs to be equitable access to all routes, regardless of location. To be fair to the Department of Transport, it has done phenomenal work since I have come into office in expanding its Local Link service and in making its fleet far more accessible and better integrated. Perhaps this is something I will take further. One of the reasons I have had these conversations is to see how we can address the inequality of the €4 charge in CHO 1 versus the other eight CHOs that do not have a charge.
Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I thank the Minister of State for her response. I join with the Minister of State in complimenting all those involved in the Local Link service. It is a fantastic service and there is serious potential to expand that even further, as the Minister of State outlined, and I look forward to that. I am heartened by the Minister of State's comments on her input into having a look at the charge being applied in CHO 1 only. It is unfair to the service users involved and I would welcome, that on their behalf, the Minister of State would do all in her power to ensure that citizens living in CHO 1 are treated no differently to citizens elsewhere and that this unfair charge will be removed as soon as possible.
Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | 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.