Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Mar 1999

Vol. 501 No. 3

Written Answers. - Disabled Drivers Scheme.

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

The scheme the Deputy is referring to is the disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme. The medical criteria for the purposes of the tax concessions under this scheme are set out in the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Regulations 1994. Six different types of disablement are listed under the regulations and a qualifying person must satisfy one or more of them. The scheme targets relief at those persons who are severely and permanently disabled with regard to physical mobility.

The comprehensive review of the workings of the provisions of the scheme was carried out in 1993-94 and resulted in the adoption of the current regulations. The six types of disablement are as follows:– (a) persons who are wholly or almost wholly without the use of both legs; (b) persons wholly without the use of one of their legs and almost wholly without the use of the other leg such that they are severely restricted as to movement of their lower limbs; (c) persons without both hands or without both arms; (d) persons without one or both legs; (e) persons wholly or almost wholly without the use of both hands or arms and wholly or almost wholly without the use of one leg; and, (f) persons having the medi cal condition of dwarfism and who have serious difficulties of movement of the lower limbs.

These criteria relate essentially to disabilities which seriously and permanently impair the physical mobility of the person concerned and reflect the origins of the scheme as a relief for disabled persons who were confirmed to wheelchairs but nevertheless were capable of driving suitably adapted cars. For this reason, visual impairment is not a disability which comes within the scope of the specified medical criteria. The scheme can also be said of many other medical conditions which although disabling, do not compromise the physical mobility of the person concerned to a serious degree.

An inter-departmental group has recently been established, under the chairmanship of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, with a view to determine what modifications, if any, might be proposed to the scheme.