Louth housing refurbishment allocation
Senator Moran welcomes housing-refurbishment funding but criticises County Louth’s small allocation and raises related concerns about disability adaptations and ambulance reliability.
I, too, welcome the funding that has been made available this week to refurbish vacant local authority housing. I am disappointed, however, that my local area, County Louth, has been allocated a mere €76,000. This sum will not go far given the length of the housing list in the county. Another issue that needs to be addressed is the position of people with a disability who suffer a loss when a local authority cannot renovate or modernise their homes because they do not own them.
On my journey to the House this morning, I was shocked to hear on a radio programme that another ambulance broke down while transporting a patient from the Lourdes hospital in Drogheda to St. James's Hospital in Dublin. I understand the patient was on a life support machine and the journey was delayed by 15 minutes as the crew waited for another ambulance to arrive to complete the journey. This is the second time a serious incident involving an ambulance has occurred. Only a few weeks ago, an ambulance caught fire while transporting a child to a hospital. We also had a case of an ambulance breaking down. I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on the service plan for the National Ambulance Service. The ambulance service was also the subject of recent television programmes. It is important to have a debate on this issue.
I commend a judge in a case down the country who imposed a five-month driving ban on an individual who parked his car in a disabled parking zone. I commend the judge on taking such a hard stand on this matter. Stronger legislation is needed to penalise people who park in disabled parking bays, causing serious inconvenience to people who require disabled parking. I understand that the individual in the case to which I refer parked his car across two disabled parking spaces and claimed to be unaware that disabled parking regulations were still in force after 5 p.m. Disabilities do not vanish after 5 p.m. or before 9.30 a.m. I call for stronger legislation and a debate on this issue.
