Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The issue of transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities is a key priority that has implications for several departments and agencies across Government, including my own.

Under the National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-2022, a Transport Working Group was established under Action 104 to make progress on an important cross-Government initiative to review transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities and to advance proposals for the enhancement of these supports going forward. The Transport Working Group's work has now concluded and its final report was published in February 2023 ("Proposals for the Development and Coordination of Enhanced Transport and Mobility Support Options for People with Disabilities"). The report conveys the contributions and proposals made by members of the Group for the enhancement of transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities.

Transport and mobility supports are critical in supporting inclusion and independent living. For that reason, it is incumbent on colleagues across Government with responsibility for transport and mobility supports to carefully consider how the recommendations of the Transport Working Group ought to be advanced with their respective responsibilities and in light of the schemes and supports that they administer and operate.

Within my own Department, I am giving full and due consideration to the recommendations of the Transport Working Group in relation to my own responsibilities in the delivery of specialist disability services, and my officials are engaging at a senior level with colleagues across government to map out next steps in a complex policy environment. To this end, a Senior Officials Group has been convened by the Department of the Taoiseach to consider recommendations on foot of the final report of the Transport Working Group. My Department is actively engaged with.

Both the work of the Senior Officials Group and the Transport Working Group's final report will feed significantly into the development of the next National Disability Strategy, which will take ambitious action to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to the necessary transport supports that allow them to live lives of their own choosing within their communities.