Departmental Schemes Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-11 ============================================================ Maria Byrne (FG), Agricultural Panel I thank the Minister of State. As he has said himself in his response on behalf of the Minister, it is up to the company to contact the applicant. In some cases some people have actually had no contact. They cannot contact them because they have to wait to be contacted. They are also being told it is not clear whether they qualify. Clarity needs to be established. An educational programme needs to be put in place for the providers because they need to be clear with their message. It also needs to be made quite clear what exactly a vulnerable person is and what life-saving equipment is. It does refer to electrically powered equipment and assistive technology but people who have that equipment and different types of machines do not seem to qualify under the scheme. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:37+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-11