Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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59. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of all transport services which are co-funded by her Department in respect of persons with disabilities for each of the past four years; and the amount of funding allocated to them and their locations. [25713/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Access to transport services for persons with mobility impairments is primarily as matter for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sports and the Health Services Executive. In a number of instances nationally, the Department of Social Protection, through the Community Services Programme (CSP), has been able to support the provision of services by community companies. Contracts under the CSP are provided in the form of wage subsidy for the employment of a manager and a number of full-time equivalent positions. The nature and type of services provided by contractors vary across a broad range of activities. To be eligible, the service must be provided by a non-profit sharing company or co-operative; the service must be capable of being traded and revenue generating and must meet locally identified service gaps or where there is a deficit in demand that cannot be met by the public or private sectors. The level of non-public resources required to be generated by contractors relate to the nature of the service provision, the local opportunities to trade and a range of other social and commercial factors. Pobal has been engaged by the Department to provide contract management, financial control and day-to-day operational services. The funding available to the programme in 2013 is just over €46m with 420 contracts in place at the end of May 2013 supporting 2,084 full-time positions. Details of contracts in respect of accessible transport service providers are set out in the table under.

Community Services Programme – contractors providing accessible transport

* Vantastic: Prior to 2011, funding is provided by the Department of Justice and Equality. All grants are now consolidated in the CSP

** Cork Accessible Transport plans to cease operation at the end of June 2013. The contract value shown above relates to the period Jan – June.