Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 91: To ask the Minister for Transport when he will respond to the Commission on Taxi Regulation's proposals to introduce a subsidy scheme to increase the number of wheelchair accessible taxis in view of the fact that at present as few as 7.5% of a fleet of more than 27,000 are wheelchair accessible; if he will review the recent €5 million reduction in accessibility to public transport programmes for people with a disability in Budget 2009; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21274/09]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that the Commission for Taxi Regulation, in the context of its follow up to the economic review of the small public service vehicle sector, is reconsidering the options for increasing the availability of wheelchair accessible taxis. I will further consider the Commission's proposals for a subsidy scheme to incentivise the provision of more wheelchair accessible taxis in the light of the outcome of this further work.

It should be noted in regard to the funding of accessibility improvements in public transport that accessibility is being built into new transport infrastructure and, while it is true to say that the funding for 2009 has been reduced by €5 million, the revised allocation of €20 million still represents an increase of 43% over the 2008 allocation and will be sufficient to cater for accessibility improvement projects over the course of the year.