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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— April – May 2013
T
HE recent announcement that the
Mobility Allowance and Motorised
Transport Grant schemes were to cease
has caused huge anger and concern.
The Office of the Ombudsman had highlighted
discrimination in the operation of the schemes
because they were only available to people with
certain disabilities and to those under years
of age.
Department of Health and Children officials
have indicated that the schemes, which cost
€. million annually, would rise to between
€ and € million annually if they were
expanded to these wider groups. These amounts
are disputed by organisations, experts and mem-
bers of all political parties on the basis of the
strictness of the criteria that need to be met to
avail of the schemes.
After Christmas, Minister for Health and
Children, James Reilly, and Minister for State,
Kathleen Lynch, when pressed by the Oireachtas
Public Oversight Committee, had both acknowl-
edged that the schemes were flawed and in
contravention of the Equal Status Act. They
stated that something needed to be done but
did not indicate the schemes would end. Three
weeks later the schemes were ended, to the
consternation of the Oireachtas Committee and
the Ombudsman.
A review group has been established with no
indication as to how people currently in receipt of
payments are to be supported once the payments
end on June th. Ten years after the first alert
that the schemes were flawed, the Government
has taken action without consulting those who
benefit from the schemes. This has resulted in a
decision that is unfair both to those benefitting
from the schemes and to those who are excluded
from applying for them.
The people most affected by the decision to
end the schemes are those living in rural areas
with no other transport options, those who are
not able to use buses and trains safely, and those
who have no assistants available to accompany
them. The payments were made to those with the
most significant disabilities who had no other
means to provide for transport and who could
not use public transport.
Many people who live in residential settings
also have very limited means after they pay for
their services. The schemes provided them with
the chance to leave their institutions and to
engage in social and community life. The with-
drawal of these payments represents a cut of up
to % in the income of recipients.
The schemes were some of the few supports
that recognised the cost of disability. They ena-
bled people who would otherwise not be able to
travel to appointments and other commitments
to pay for private transport or fund the costs of
accessible vans.
The Programme for Government promised
the introduction of ‘Personal Budgets’ for thera-
peutic and accommodation supports for people
with disabilities. The decision to end the schemes
contravenes this stated Government intention
to place persons with a disability at the centre of
decision-making about themselves. There has
been no consultation, and no White Paper from
the Department of Health and Children.
The Department of Health and Children
has indicated that it intends to move the funds
from the schemes into the provision of trans-
port services which pick up and drop off people
with disabilities, as and when they can. A return
to restrictive, institutionalised ‘ambulance’-type
services insults the self-determination and inde-
pendence of people with disabilities.
This decision to end these schemes, under the
false guise of achieving equality, will make things
much worse for the small numbers involved. A
payment to enable people to provide for and
choose their own transport needs was a modern
and cost-effective policy. This is the message that
those who benefited from the schemes wish to
communicate loudly and clearly to the group now
charged with reviewing the schemes and propos-
ing new responses. That is, if they ever get around
to consulting before the payments end.
politics
A return to restrictive
institutionalised
‘ambulance’-type
services insults the
self-determination and
independence of people with
disabilities
A stupid, mean cut
Paying people with disabilities to fund their own transport choices was good
value and dignified
suzy byrne
Pulling up the drawbridge
Open letter to the Director General of RTE
from the undersigned representatives of Irish society.
Five years into Ireland’s financial free-fall; the ordinary citizens of this state who bear no fault or
responsibility for this economic collapse are forced into a regime of Austerity, Homelessness, Hun-
ger, Eviction, Family Break Down, Receivership, Bankruptcy, Mass Emigration, Unemployment, and
the decimation of state services such as Health, Education, Security and Transport plus the enforced
sale of State Utilities and Natural Resources.
This intolerable situation is exacerbated by the withdrawal of some of the economy’s most produc-
tive members; the economy further suffers as they strive to resolve their problems in a host of ways
from the expensive defence of futile court actions to in many very sad cases of suicide.
The Courts take the view that they borrowed the money so it has to be repaid. The Legislature has
determined that insolvency is somehow a fair resolution, but the full story is neither known nor is it
in the bureaucrats interest that it emerge, given their inglorious past record of inaction.
To this end, in an effort to placate the honest law abiding citizens of this state, a false impression
has been put abroad that those who did wrong will be made to account and face the consequences
of their actions.
Accordingly, we call on you, The National Broadcaster to properly finance and present a programme
which will illustrate the wide scale and systematic criminality which has been concealed by an
opaque web of propaganda and which laid the foundation for all of the above including the Insol-
vency.
The list of banking crimes includes falsification of accounts, documents and signatures and they are
widespread. Would citizens have borrowed the money if these banking practices were exposed in
time for them.
It will not even be necessary to search; we will hand you the evidence
DEBT OPTIONS; THE UNITED FARMERS ASSOCIATION
THE PROPERTY COUNCIL OF IRELAND
FRIENDS OF BANKING (IRELAND}
CONCERNED IRISH CITIZENS
DIRECT DEMOCRACY IRELAND
THE PEOPLE FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE
