Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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251. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will provide details of his engagement with the Minister for Transport concerning the provision of public transport services for disabled persons attending day services. [54096/22]

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister of State with responsibility for Disability I am keenly aware of the importance of accessible and reliable public transport services for people with disabilities in Ireland, not least for those relying on public transport to facilitate their attendance at day services. 

There has been extensive engagements between my officials and officials in the Department of Transport on a range of Transport related issues, in particular on the accessibility of public transport, which has been a key feature of the engagement between our Departments. This has been facilitated by ongoing actions under the National Disability Inclusion Strategy (NDIS) and the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities (CES).

The role of my Department in relation to the NDIS and CES is to coordinate action under the Strategies at whole of government level, with individual departments and agencies holding responsibility for specific delivery of actions. In that regard, my colleague the Minister for Transport will be able to provide more granular detail on his Department's progress regarding Strategy actions.

In relation to the specific issue of transport for day services, the Department of Health and the HSE provide support for specialist disability services, including day services and rehabilitative training, to people with disabilities who require such services.

While the HSE has no statutory obligation relating to the direct provision of transport services some transport supports are provided by the HSE or funded agencies on a discretionary basis, and a variety of transport solutions are pursued in different CHO areas. These include travel training to enable public transport to be used upon commencement of a day programme (where applicable), local transport such as Local Link, private bus transport providers and taxis, funded via a combination of service provider funding, HSE funding, service user contribution, and / or combined funding; and some service providers provide transport where capacity exists.

In general, day service users are in receipt of disability allowance and are automatically entitled to the Free Travel Pass.