Kildare Senator calls for greater access for people with disabilities to personal transport schemes
A Senator from Kildare has made a call for greater access for people with disabilities in relation to personal transport schemes.
It follows just days after Fianna Fáil's (FF) Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Disability, Anne Rabbitte TD, initiated the first call for submissions for the Autism Innovations Strategy, as well as its development process for the coming months.
Now, her fellow FF colleague, Senator Fiona O’Loughlin, has made a similar call.
She told those in attendance at the Seanad: "The ombudsman recently launched a report Grounded - Unequal access for people with disabilities to personal transport schemes."
"Its finding were disturbing, in particular in regard to the motorised transport grant and the mobility allowance which the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government did away with in 2013, promising that something would be put in place."
The Kildare-South politician continued: "It is almost nine years later but nothing has been put in place.
"People are being denied access to work and to education, the ability to shop for themselves and a social and a sporting life, because sport matters to people with disabilities as much as it does to all of us."
She concluded: "We absolutely need to see action in relation to this, and it is incumbent on us all to ensure that this is dealt with in 2022."
Senator O' Loughlin publicly welcomed the news that over €60,000 has been allocated to Kildare animal welfare groups, in a move which coincides with Animal Welfare Awareness Day 2021.