I welcome the opportunity to raise this matter and thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting it. This is an issue I have raised consistently and to which I have had numerous responses at a State-wide level from the HSE. The HSE points to the number of people, over 22,000 adults, in receipt of HSE-funded disability day service supports at 1,200 locations, working with 97 service providers. It acknowledges that many people with a disability need access to transport to enable each person to attend a day service but that the provision of transport services is not part of core services within disability services. The HSE encourages people to use public transport options and to be independent, understandably, but it recognises that public transport options are not always available to many people throughout the country. Specifically in relation to Meath, it reiterates that day services do not have a separate budget for transport. It says that transport in Meath is managed in a combined way between service providers and the HSE transport manager, who contracts Transport for Ireland, TFI, to supply some historical transport. That is significant. There are 217 service users accommodated on this historical transport to adult day services but there are currently five others on the waiting list for particular transport routes. There is a gap in funding but also in the transport service provision. I want to raise a specific case of one of those service users who is on a waiting list. I have his and his mother's consent to raise their case in the Dáil this evening. It is the case of Noah Gibney from Slane in County Meath. He is 19 years of age, going on 20. He left school last year and has since been attending Prosper Meath in Navan. Noah is a full-time wheelchair user. He has cerebral palsy, autism, intellectual disability and scoliosis. He is not independent and cannot use public transport to get from his house to Prosper and home again daily. These services are really important. The response we have from the HSE locally is that, unfortunately, no space is currently available on the route for a second wheelchair, as the bus can only accommodate one at a time. The HSE Meath transport manager advises that Noah continues to be wait-listed for transport provision. It is important that there is no defined timeline for the waiting list. That is really frustrating in this case. The policy objective, which we share, is that people can live independently and be provided with supports to do that. In this case, that is not happening. Noah's mum, Jennifer, has done her very best to secure safe and secure transport for her son, but every door is closed and, as a result, she is bringing him to and from his day services in Prosper every day. That is not a long-term solution and it runs directly contrary to the policy of giving people their independence.

Sentiment score: 0.11

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. I know she understands the importance of these services for Noah and everybody else who accesses them for fulfilment, engagement, development and independence. She has articulated here and in the responses I have got before that a unique set of circumstances exist in Meath. It is a frustration for us in Meath that they were there. It is different now for people coming into the system. The wider point is about the need for an integrated system that can ensure that, where people cannot access public transport for whatever reason, a transport system is in place to allow people to have independence and not to be dependent on individuals. We can all imagine scenarios where someone's carer, support or transport provider, such as a family or friend, is not available because they are sick, away or so on, which has a knock-on impact. I ask the Minister of State to look at this issue, specifically at Noah's case, and at Meath, but also in a wider context at transport for people accessing adult day services. No two cases are the same. There are individual merits, for example, and if a needs assessment was done, a transport need might be identified in an individual case.

Sentiment score: 0.16