Sir, - This Association was formed to promote the extension of the tax refund Scheme for Disabled Drivers and Passengers to blind car passengers. The Minister for Finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy, has made the case in all his replies to our members, of which I have 70, that the existing scheme is applied to an individual based on his state of immobility rather than any named medical condition. It is our argument that this is precisely why the scheme should be extended to include the blind. Blindness is not a medical condition but is the loss of a faculty crucial to mobility, caused by many and varied medical conditions.
The eyes therefore need to be given the same status as the limbs in defining immobility, if equality is to exist within this scheme. It is our opinion that this can be done within the present parameters without endangering the existing definitions. If the defining parameter is immobility and not any particular medical condition, what is more immobilising than not having the use of one's eyes? If you were to place a blind person in the middle of the road and take away his cane and guide-dog, he would be just as immobile as a paraplegic who fell out of his chair. Surely this is obvious.
Blindness, under the present regulations, is the only severe cause of immobility which is not included in the present scheme. All other physical medical conditions, once they have reached a level of severity, are eligible under present criteria. Blindness, however, no matter how severe it is, will never qualify for the scheme. Yet the eyes are just as crucial to mobility as the legs.
Blindness is already fully defined under Statutory Law for the purposes of the Blind Pension. There are approximately 6,000 blind persons in Ireland (the blind register is held by the National Council for the Blind), but as the blind will qualify merely as passengers and not as drivers, only a small proportion of these will be interested in this scheme. I would point out that in spite of extensive publicity in blind circles for our Association we have only 70 members. So the extra numbers of those who would qualify for the scheme is not excessive. It is our considered opinion that the broadening of the definition of immobility in this way to include the eyes as well as the legs as the defining factor for immobility, does not imply a general broadening of the scheme. - Yours, etc., Aedan O'Meara, PRO, The Blind Car Owners and Users Association,
Bishopstown, Cork.