I congratulate the Minister and Minister of State on their appointments. I wish them luck in their roles. What progress has been made to date on replacing the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal, DDMBA?

I thank the Minister. We do not have a definite date for the establishment of the medical board of appeal. I asked the Minister's predecessor, the current Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, this question a number of times. I have also linked it to the proposed review of the disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme because the criteria to apply for a primary medical certificate to access the scheme are extremely stringent. That is why the board resigned at the end of November 2021. It…

I thank the Minister. People's rights are being infringed. The State ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, in 2018 and nearly five years later there is no transport scheme in place for disabled people. The disabled drivers and disabled passengers scheme is extremely limited and only applies to a small number of very disabled people. We need more schemes. I was going to ask the Minister for an update on the publication of the report of the transport working group,…

Sinn Féin supports the objective of cutting emissions but it is clear that the Government's approach is not working and that new ideas and climate action policies are needed. The current proposals are inequitable. Much of the Government's climate action plan puts a burden on ordinary workers and families, particularly family farmers and rural communities. Those living in rural Ireland find it difficult, if not impossible, to access services, whether employment, education or retail, without using a private car. A la…

We are two and a half years into the programme for Government yet the transfer of specialist disability services from the Department of Health to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has still not taken place. We understand that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is behind the delay. As a consequence, the Minister for Health will no longer deal with matters relating to disability services and budgets for which he says he is no longer responsible. Nor will the Minister…

This motion tonight highlights the terrible situation our health system is currently in and puts forward real solutions that can assist in turning this around. A recent survey carried out by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, found that 65% of nursing graduates are currently considering emigrating due to the cost of living. This Government has failed to tackle the cost-of-living and the housing crises. This is forcing healthcare workers to emigrate and preventing many others from coming home. On the …

I welcome this motion and commend the Social Democrats on tabling it. We have a severe crisis in teacher supply at present in both primary and post-primary schools, primarily caused by the cost and availability of housing throughout the country, especially in Dublin and other urban centres. It is greatly exacerbated by the current cost-of-living crisis. Teachers, particularly lower-paid younger teachers, cannot afford the rental costs and have little prospect of being able to manage a mortgage in the big urban cent…

As many of my colleagues have stated, this is not about the Bill - there is no issue with the Bill - or the amendments. It is about transparency and ensuring mistakes of the past are not repeated. A doctor or clinician should be obliged to inform a patient of the right to a Part 5 review at the time of diagnosis, but that is not the case under the Bill. The Bill does not provide for a statutory duty of candour. It does not place an obligation on the doctor to inform the patient where an error was made or an inaccur…

Many people enjoy the activity of gambling and do so responsibly but for some people and their families, gambling can become a very serious problem. Recent research by the Gambling Awareness Trust in conjunction with Maynooth University places the number of people in the South who engage in problem gambling at approximately 55,000. There is a need for greater action to help those at risk as when it comes to avoiding, and responding to, problem gambling only voluntary codes of practice exist. These were created by v…

We are constantly encouraged to use public transport where available and to leave the car at home. I wish to raise problems with the bus service from Cavan to Dublin, the 109X. The service has sufficient capacity going to Dublin but there are huge problems with the return journey. Buses are at capacity when they reach the last stop out of Dublin, which is at Blanchardstown, from about 4.30 p.m. or 5 p.m. for a number of hours. In many cases the bus does not stop at all or it stops and there are one or two space ava…

As the spokesperson on disability for my party, I wish to raise several concerns around disabled people. There are persistently low levels of employment among people with disabilities, despite a widespread desire for work and career aspirations which are held by many and could be realised with the correct supports. This has resulted in appallingly high levels of poverty and enforced deprivation across households headed by a person with a disability. Currently, the rate of poverty and social exclusion for people wit…

Last week it was brought to my attention that persons in receipt of disability payment from the Department of Social Protection who had taken up training and been transferred to a training allowance for the duration would not be entitled to the €500 lump sum. I raised it with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. She was to raise it with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I think it is to be addressed. I am raising it here again to make sure, because there is confusion, that this applies to people on community e…

I welcome the motion and commend my colleague, Deputy Brady, on the work he has undertaken in tabling it. Retained firefighters are first responders and are often first on the scene of awful tragedies that we can only imagine. It is a dangerous job with enormous pressure, and firefighters face real risks to their personal safety. Firefighters go into burning buildings to make sure that the rest of us are out of them. They go to cars and cut people out of them even though the cars might explode or burst into flames …

I welcome the motion on the report. I commend all the disabled people and the DPO representatives who appeared before us as witnesses and shared their lived or living experiences, because without that we would not have been able to compile the report. I also commend the Chair, Deputy Michael Moynihan, all the members of the committee and the secretariat because, again, without them, the report would not have been possible. The report goes to the heart of the struggle for disability rights and the equality agenda fo…

Currently, there are over 6,000 people across the State waiting on home care support. It is an unacceptable situation. The crisis is getting worse and worse. In October 2021, 4,825 people were awaiting home care. In July of this year, there were 5,312. According to a reply to a recent parliamentary question I submitted, it is now at 6,255. We as a party have been warning for a number of years about a looming crisis within the home care system. In responses to parliamentary questions I submitted, the Government ackn…

Many people from rural communities such as my own constituency of Cavan-Monaghan who, through necessity, commute to the large urban centres such as Dublin, are heavily reliant on private cars due to the lack of public transport options in rural Ireland. Where they do exist, they can often be very unreliable, leaving commuters stranded in the rain and cold waiting for the next bus, hoping it will not be full. There is an hourly bus service from Cavan to Dublin but the issue is capacity, especially with the evening s…

What are the Minister's plans to increase the financial and human resources available to the Legal Aid Board? I ask this in particular to enable persons with disabilities to vindicate their rights in court in view of the fact that the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill will be commenced in November 2022, and for the Minister to realise her obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD.

A whole section of the UNCRPD is dedicated to access to justice. While approximately 643,000 people in this country identify as disabled, there were only 73 complaints in 2019 to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, in relation to the Equal Status Act. Maybe there is a lack of awareness as to how this is dealt with or there is confusion about the role of the WRC. People may assume it deals with workplace relations but it actually deals with discrimination in access to goods and services as well. Free legal aid …

Extra resources are vital and I welcome that they will be provided. Legal aid should be made available to people who want to take a case for discrimination to the WRC. Perhaps there could be a stand-alone body or a separate division within the WRC under a new name, which would be accessible and clear about what it has to deal with in order that people will know exactly where to go with complaints. The Minister indicated that wardships will be phased out under the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. A constitue…

I was contacted by the father of an eight-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the end of last year. She is under the care of an excellent team in Cavan General Hospital but she is finding the insulin injections quite stressful. When her parents inquired about an insulin pump, they were told that due to staffing and funding issues, that was not possible in Cavan General Hospital and the doctor referred her to a different hospital. I know this does not apply just to Cavan General Hospital and…