Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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497. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of her plans regarding the implementation of recommendations from the 2018 Oireachtas committee on transport paper, Accessibility of Public Transport for People With Disabilities (details supplied, in particular reference to recommendation 9; her views on this recommendation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3684/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Free Travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. These include road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, as well as Luas and services provided by over 80 private transport operators. There are currently approx. 948,000 customers with direct eligibility. The estimated expenditure on free travel in 2021 is €95 million.

The objective of the Free Travel scheme is to ensure that older people and people with disabilities remain active within their community. The scheme was never intended as a targeted support for people with severe mobility issues. Neither was the scheme ever intended to provide additional transport options to travel pass holders but to allow them access to existing services available from transport providers, who participate in the scheme.

If the Free Travel scheme was to be extended to all people who had a disability and/or significant health issues, regardless of whether they receive a qualifying payment, a medical assessment process would be required for all such applications, significantly changing the nature of the scheme. Any decision to change the eligibility criteria of the free travel scheme along such lines would have significant costs and require additional administrative processes to be put in place. Accordingly, it could only be considered in the context of overall budgetary negotiations.

Under the “Make Work Pay” Initiative people in receipt of a long term disability payment who move off the payment to get a job can retain their Free Travel Card for a period of five years.

Under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, my Department may award a travel supplement, where the circumstances of the particular case so warrant. The supplement is intended to assist with ongoing or recurring travel costs that cannot be met from the client’s own resources and are deemed to be necessary. Every decision is based on consideration of the circumstances of the individual case, taking account of the nature and extent of the need and of the resources of the person concerned.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.