Having a car totally changes the life of somebody who otherwise would be stuck at home all day looking out the window.
"If I hadn't a car, that's what I'd be doing," says Derek Farrell. "Being able to drive gives me total independence. I can live a full and active life. I can work and pay my taxes like the next person. I have to have a car to achieve this because generally public transport in Ireland is not accessable to the disabled. I can't just get on a bus and travel where I want to. If I need to get on a train in my wheelchair, I have to arrange in advance that there will be a special facility for me."
He says bluntly that in Ireland, 'disability often equates with poverty' and while the situation is improving, largely because people with disabilities are today better educated and have some chance of getting employment, "we still have a long way to go".
We tend to think of drivers with disability as a small minority of the motoring population. And in a way they are, with something like 7,000 cars here provided with the European Disabled Persons Parking Card, from over four million vehicles on our roads.
Around 80 per cent of disabled people are unemployed, and can't afford to buy and run a vehicle that will enable them to live full lives. Despite a major report published in 1996 from the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, which highlighted transport and mobility problems as the greatest barriers to independent living, the majority of recommendations made in that report have still not been implemented.
Even though a number of organisations and commercial motoring schools offer disabled driver training and information, there's no Government-led standard of assessment for people with disabilities as to their driving capabilities.
It's not just a problem of people with direct physical disability. The increasing age profile of European demographics is reflected in Irish society and will continue to grow. Therefore, a larger pool of elderly motorists will require not only a propoer assessment of their ability but vehicles that reflect their specific needs.
The figures are stark and unambiguous, and point to an ever-widening gap between what is in place and what should be. About 14 per cent of the population of Europe has a recognised disability. The number of people over 65 will double during the next 30 years. And over half of the population over 75 has some form of disability.
As things stand, an ever-larger segment of Ireland's population will be condemned to sit at home because they are without basic mobility.
Then there are those who retain their licences without having to take a proper reassesment, sometimes because their GP simply signs a form. After all, their requirements are simply to check for the usual eyesight and basic sensory tests.
Other countries are way ahead of us. Belgium, for instance, began providing driving assessment services for people with disabilities in the 1970s.
Britain has more Driving Assessment and Advice Centres than any other European country. It also has a dedicated Medical Advisory Branch at its DVLA driving licence headquarters in Swansea.
In Ireland there are no specific requirements for a person with a disability to take a driving test. The only checks are the "normal" ones: eyesight, epilipsy, or dementia in the elderly.
This is in contrast to the regimes in some other European countries, such as in Germany, where disabled drivers and their adapted vehicles undergo strict examinations.
"The effort should always be towards enabling," says disabled driver rehabilitation specialist Tony Regan, who is also a transport consultant for people with disabilities. "But I have serious concerns about the lack of an assessment standard here. And we should also be very worried about the practice of GPs signing fitness-to-drive forms for elderly people without any kind of real assessment procedures in place."
There is an EU movement towards standardisation in this area, in a programme currently at the discussion stage called Concensus. Tony Regan and the CEO of the Disabled Drivers Association, Derek Farrell, are the Irish participants.
"The result of this will initially be a set of guidelines, non-binding on member countries," says Regan, who has 25 years' experience in the field in Britain, the US, and recently in Ireland. "But the Government should really embrace these guidelines."
There is also the problem of qualification. Ideally, an assessor needs to have a strong knowledge of disability, of the driving needs related to the disabled and the elderly, and of the technologies available. In short, they need to be a combination of occupational therapist/driving instructor/engineer.
Driver training for people with disabilities began in Ireland in the 1960s, when the Irish Wheelchair Association organised a bus driver to train people in a converted Mini on Dollymount Strand.
Since then, the IWA has set up a Mobility Centre in Clane in Co Kildare. It also provides training and assessment services at locations in Dublin, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Navan, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Letterkenny.
Cars with automatic transmissions and controls adapted in varying degrees for disabled people are used at each centre.
Elsewhere, the Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland (DDAI) was founded in 1970 in Ballindine, Co Mayo, provides the only residential course for disabled drivers in these islands. It also operates training centres in Dublin and Cork
The four-week course totals some 40 hours of intensive training on a variety of vehicles, all with automatic transmission.
It's also the only centre in Ireland with a Fiat-developed Static Driving Assessment Unit that measures an operator's steering strength, braking power, reaction time and decision-making skills. The unit cost €71,000 and uses the controls and seating of an Alfa Romeo car.
(Evert driving assessment centre in Britain has a similar piece of equipment.)
"Our biggest difficulty is getting the information out on what is available," says Peadar Toibéin of Motability Ireland, an Ashbourne based vehicle adaptation company which has more than 50 years of experience in the field.
A review of some of the adaptations which are carried out by Motability Ireland - the biggest amongst more than a dozen companies working in this area - demonstrates the enormous range of possibilities and a surprising degree of disability which can be accommodated.
These range from simple things such as steering wheel balls and panoramic mirrors, allowing one-handed steering with the former and better visibility for people with restricted head movement through the latter, to complicated hoists, ramps, winches, and whole-vehicle conversions.
A number of car distributors here help in several ways. Fiat's Europe-wide Autonomy motability programme is dedicated to people with disabilities and offers a 6 per cent discount to holders of the Primary Medical Certificate. Most other manufacturers offer discounts, but usually to a lesser degree.
In addition, Ford, Nissan and Opel have also made available demonstrator cars to the training organisations.
The Government provides considerable financial resources to the situation through the VRT reduction scheme and the capitation payments to organisations such as the IWA and the DDAI.
But there's a real question as to whether it should be much more specific in providing for the need. Perhaps a prescription for new financial glasses is called for?