A transport cost of €4 which parents of children with special needs in this region have to pay for transport to day services is set to be scrapped. A number of years ago, Cavan-Monaghan Senator Robbie Gallagher established that only families in ther HSE's CHO1 region which covers Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal had to pay the levy.
The daily €4 transport charge would amount to about €900 over a year for parents in the Shannonside / Northern Sound region, who are already more financially squeezed than others with the costs associated with caring for their loved ones with additional needs. Following years of lobbying the Department of Disabilities, Minister Anne Rabbitte has just now given Senator Gallagher a commitment to scrap the charge. Minister Rabbitte indicated the levy will be abolished within possibly three months. She did not, however, indicate whether families in this area would be reimbursed for the money they've already had to pay while families in the rest of the country were not expected to.
Nevertheless, Senator Gallagher is hailing the announcement as a "good news story": "I look forward to, first of all, the charge being done away with; that's the first hurdle," Senator Gallagher told Northern Sound, "Getting it retrospectively paid back I'd say would be difficult and would be a big ask, to be honest. I'm not too sure about that but, what I'm sure about is that the charge , going forward is to be phased out and, the Minister, to be fair to her, has found the funding to cover the element of the daily transport charge that parents were paying for their loved ones so, it's a good news story in that regard."
