Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 June 2023
543. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth what his Department is doing to progress the Transport Working Group's final report published in February this year to enhance transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29700/23]
View answerThe 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, since the transfer of functions from the Department of Health in March 2023, my own.
Under the National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-2022, the Action 104 Transport Working Group was established to make progress on an important cross-Government action to review transport and mobility supports for people with disabilities and to advance proposals for the enhancement of these supports going forward. Although interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, I chaired meetings of the Transport Working Group from its resumption of work in January 2022 up to its conclusion in December 2022.
The Transport Working Group's work has now concluded and its final report was published in February 2023. It is available on my Department's website. 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 the closed Mobility Allowance and Motorised Transport Grant, and in relation to transport to and from specialist community-based disability services.
The Working Group's final report will also form an important part of the evidence base guiding the development of the successor to the National Disability Inclusion Strategy throughout 2023.
