€4.5m of 'evaporated' funds used in disability transport initiatives, department claims

Fianna Fáil TD Padraig O'Sullivan said that organisations like the Galway Centre for Independent Living and Cumas in Wexford were 'waiting on this funding'. File Picture: Larry Cummins

The Department of Children has denied that a €5m fund secured in October 2023 has "evaporated", as suggested by a government TD.

The funding was announced as part of Budget 2024 and was aimed at supporting transport initiatives for those with disabilities.

However, the Dáil was told last week that the money had not been spent and that those chosen to receive the funds had not yet received the money.

Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North-Central Pádraig O'Sullivan told the Dáil that the €5m was linked to transport initiatives, accessibility, provision of minibuses, and so forth for people in the disability sector. 

He said that organisations like the Galway Centre for Independent Living, Cumas in Wexford, the Irish Wheelchair Association, Variety Ireland, and the WayFinding Centre in Dublin were "waiting on this funding".

"I am not sure whether it is the case that the €5m has evaporated or, in the way the HSE tends to do sometimes, been repurposed," he said.

I cannot find an answer as to what has happened to that €5m

"I do not want to have to submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department of Health or to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in this regard. I was hoping the Tánaiste might be able to intervene and get answers with regard to this €5m," he said.

Vehicle purchases

In a response, the Department of Children said that €4.5m of the €5m had been spent and that around 70% of the vehicles purchased with the money will be on the road by the end of the first quarter of this year.

A spokesperson said that Variety Ireland Trikes had been given €387,750 on a once-off basis, that €500,000 had gone to the extension of an existing open routes Leitrim pilot, and that €3.6m went to the New and Replacement Vehicles Scheme. 

The remaining €500,000 was held back subject to further consideration of another proposal for funding.

The spokesperson said that, in December 2024, the department provided sanction to the HSE for a once-off measure of €3.6m funding to be used for the upgrade of transport vehicles in Disability Day services, specifically aimed at "supporting the provision of vehicles for transport to day services where other transport solutions are not available and where an ageing fleet exists".

The spokesperson added that "100% of the funding allocated was used to purchase a total of 77 vehicles, 41 of which were replacement vehicles for old or unreliable stock and 36 were new vehicles added to the transport fleet".