Written answers

Friday, 7 September 2018

Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Disabled Drivers Permits

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1130. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to introduce legislation to extend eligibility to a disabled parking permit to provide for the carers of persons with autism; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36682/18]

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I currently do not have any plans to expand the current criteria for eligibility for the Disabled Person’s Parking Permit to cover children or adults with autism, or other hidden disabilities. At present, the permit is available to people living in Ireland with a permanent disability, medical condition, severe mobility difficulties and to people who are registered blind. The medical criteria for issue of the permit are strict and only persons whose mobility is severely and permanently restricted qualify.

These criteria were revised and clarified in my Department’s Review of the Disabled Parking Scheme in 2010. The review recommended revising the eligibility criteria for the disabled parking permit to focus on limitations on mobility rather than on diagnosis of particular medical conditions or illness. This was in line with the original intention of the scheme. Where a condition is associated with a de facto physical inability of the disabled person to walk related to development delay with physical impacts, respiratory problems or cardiac problems, a permit is usually granted as there are measurable criteria to assist making a judgement and a recognised practitioner base to refer to.

To extend the criteria to include other categories, key stakeholders would need to present a case for a further review of the scheme which I would be willing to give consideration to. This submission would need to take account of the benefit to the person with the particular category of disability from access to the parking spaces designated for disabled persons. A definition of the category, including the point of severity where the need for the permit can be categorised as severe, a mechanism for measurement and the professional body competent to define severity would also be required, along with an estimate of the likely population to be included in the category.

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