Absolutely, showing the present position.
I thank colleagues for their co-operation, as that deals with all the petitions before the joint committee today.
The final item concerns the announcement last night by the Minister for Health and his Department that the two schemes pertaining to the motorised transport grant and the mobility allowance will be discontinued. As members are aware, the Ombudsman had expressed concern that the schemes were being run contrary to the laws in respect of equality legislation and had presented her concerns to this joint committee. The joint committee then brought before it the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, the Secretary General of the Department of Health and senior departmental officials to press the concerns of the Ombudsman and to seek some assurances from the Government as to its intentions. The joint committee has had a chance to discuss this issue today and I must state it came as a surprise to members that the courtesy was not extended of making them aware the decision had been made to discontinue the scheme, given they had raised their concerns in this regard only a few weeks ago.
We have been charged by the Oireachtas with responsibility to follow up on the Ombudsman's concerns and to try to establish the actions taken by Departments and Ministers to address the specific concerns raised by her. We were in the process of putting together a report with some recommendations that would be due to be finalised in the next couple of weeks. We will convey our disappointment at not being notified of these events.
We have agreed to invite the Secretary General of the Department of Health to come before the committee to discuss the current contentious issue that has arisen in the past 24 hours. We hope the Secretary General will attend the next meeting, which the committee will convene on Wednesday, 6 March. We could deal with these issues and other matters of dispute between the Department and the Ombudsman. We need further clarification from the Secretary General on these matters in order to make concrete recommendations and to assure the public that lessons will be learned. That is our function. This is the way we propose to deal with the developments of the past 24 hours.