I have already mentioned a number of areas in which additional facilities could be made available for the physically handicapped. I spoke about adaptations to public buildings. I want to make the point that those adaptations would not only facilitate the permanently physically disabled but would help those who are mildly handicapped, for instance, those suffering from rheumatism, and people with broken limbs. The adaptation of public transport and public buildings would also facilitate mothers with children, the elderly, people with sight defects and so on.
The grant for specially modified cars for the physically disabled was increased from £500 to £1,000. At the time the grant was £500 it represented a greater proportion of the cost of such a car than does the £1,000 grant today. While the £1,000 grant is a 100 per cent increase, it is illusory in the present context because it represents a smaller proportion of the purchase price of the car than did £500 at the time the grant was introduced. From that point of view the grant would need to be a more realistic one. It was generally agreed during the debate that the requirement that it can only be given to a person who has a job, or, as the Minister suggests, to a person who is in a position to get a job, is no great advancement. The position of those who have to travel to their employment and who do not get a grant is most unsatisfactory.
There are 25,000 to 30,000 persons in receipt of disability benefit. I accept that some of them would be suffering greater permanent physical disabilities than others. Nonetheless, 500 or 600 persons are driving specially modified cars. What happens in relation to the rest of those people who have some disability to the extent that the Minister is prepared to sanction payment of disability benefit to them? These people must have difficulty travelling on existing transport facilities. The £150 mobility allowance which was introduced this year is pitiful and ludicrous. The conditions of that scheme are such that it can only be paid to people who are so immobile that they cannot travel at all. To call it a mobility allowance is a misnomer because it can only be paid to people who are so physically handicapped that they could not be mobile in any way.
In relation to the 3 per cent employment target, the Minister said that a study group have been looking into this matter and that he has now received their report. He should let us hear the details of the report. How many Government Departments and institutions of State have come close to reaching the 3 per cent target? How many of them have come close to reaching 1 per cent? I do not believe that 1 per cent of the employees in the public service or in any semi-State organisation are people who could be regarded as permanently physically disabled. There is a shame on all of us—those in charge of Government Departments, public authorities and so on.
It would be unfair if the debate concluded without extending praise to the voluntary bodies who contribute so much towards improving the lot of people who are permanently physically disabled, some of them without any form of State assistance. The encouragement through State assistance of voluntary bodies is a great way of developing the traditional Irish values of neighbourliness, of care for the disabled, of care for the aged. It is important for the proper development of our society that voluntary bodies should receive every possible form of State assistance. The idea that the State should take over the work of the voluntary bodies is anathema to me and to my party.
A recent French study showed that the loss to the economy at 1976 prices for every disabled person in the community was the equivalent in Irish terms of £150,000, including the loss in earning power. That has been valued at current Irish prices at a loss of £175,000 per person. It is clearly in the State's interest to invest in proper education, training and assistance for the physically disabled, if for no other reason than economics.
I accept the Minister's suggestion that there may not be need for legislation in this area. What he says bears out my contention that there is a need for a will, there is a need for decision and a need for somebody with a commitment to push for something to be done.
I want to conclude by offering ten points to the Minister, ten different areas in which a committed Minister could bring about real improvement for the disabled, a real improvement during 1981, the International Year for the Disabled, that would make us feel that we had done something. The Minister may be in a position to influence matters: (1) To set a time limit on all public bodies after which they would suffer financially through the loss of grants if they did not have proper ramps, proper internal facilities, proper sanitary facilities, wide doors, and light switches at the correct level, so as to assist the disabled to use those public buildings. To conduct a survey of how many public buildings do not have these facilities at present; (2) To require from the local authorities details of the number of houses which have been converted for the disabled, the number of physically disabled persons on their current waiting lists, and the number of houses at planning stage to meet that requirement; (3) To set a date after which the public transport authorities must have modifications carried out to their buses, trains, planes and so on to ensure that the permanent and temporary physically disabled can easily use their facilities; (4) to require a report from every public body, and to issue that report in public, to the embarrassment if necessary of some or all of us, as to how far the public bodies have met the 3 per cent employment content and, having got that report, to set a date obliging the bodies to meet that requirement or suffer the financial consequences; (5) to specially monitor the grant applications made by permanently physically disabled people living in private dwellings, who find extreme difficulty in having those grants expedited at present; (6) to direct that all future planning of streetscapes and new buildings should have built into them a planning requirement for facilities for the permanently disabled; (7) to direct that ordinary school buildings have facilities which would allow the partially or mildly handicapped to use them instead of special schools and to ensure that the special schools have adequate transport facilities so that we do not have the situation where a five year old must leave home at 7.30 in the morning and return at 5 o'clock; (8) to ensure that those who have to stay in permanent long-term institutions should have a reasonable amount of spending money each week so that they are not left with their physical needs catered for but in financial penury for the rest of their lives; (9) to rationalise travel grants for the disabled in respect of the grant for the disabled custom-built cars and the grant for those who have not got cars but who must travel by public transport to their places of employment; (10) to make the Department of Labour the employment agency. The Department of Health should not be the employment agency for anybody. If the Minister is still in position to do that after next week, I would urge him to do it; if the Minister is in a position to influence next week I expect that he should.
