The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) offers services to vision impaired people to promote their full independence and minimise the disabling effects of vision impairment.

 

The full text of the submission is detailed below but the key points include the following recommendations:

 

·        removing the means test for the Blind Persons’ Pension;

·        increasing the Blind Persons’ Tax Credits to €1,500 and €3,000 for a single person and married couple respectively; and

·        extending telecommunications subsidy to include broadband in light of the importance of computers to the lives of people with vision impairments.

 

NCBI welcomes the proposals in Transport 21 but calls on the Government to improve transport for vision impaired people by:

 

·        extending concessionary travel to vision impaired car users; and

·        extending mobility allowance to include taxis.

 

Following the submission of the paper to Government, Des Kenny, NCBI's Chief Executive, said:

 

"Almost 10,000 people are officially classified as blind or vision impaired in Ireland but there may be as many as 48,000 others for whom sight loss is a major issue. Our submission promotes the interests of those we currently work with as well as those who are likely to require support and services over the coming years.

 

"The Government has the opportunity to build on the strong foundations laid in 2005 – the Disability Act – and make 2006, our 75^th anniversary, a milestone for people with vision impairments."

 

 Ends

 

For further information contact NCBI’s Head of Communications, Eoin Dardis, on 01 830 7033.

 

Notes to Editors

 

1.    The NCBI (National Council for the Blind in Ireland) is a not for profit, voluntary organisation offering a service nationwide to persons experiencing problems with their eye-sight.

2.    NCBI is a registered charity (No. CHY4626) and has been in existence since 1931.

3.    The NCBI is established to promote the full independence of people with impaired vision and to minimise the disabling effects of vision impairment.

 

 

2005 PRE-BUDGET SUBMISSION

 

Introduction:

 

This pre-budget submission is framed against the backdrop of “The Disability Act” (2005) and the restructuring of health services into the HSE. A number of recommendations made here are reiterations of arguments made in submissions to previous budgets which have gone unaddressed.  It is a request of Government that in this year, the year in which “The Disability Act” was enacted and the lead-in to the 75^th anniversary of the founding of NCBI that government makes a special effort to respond positively to some, if not all of the recommendations contained in this submission.

 

Over 9,000 people in Ireland today are officially classified as “blind.” Registration is psychologically difficult to face. Many people put off for years asking for help with the handicapping aspects of reduced vision.  Anything from a further 5,000 to a staggering 48,000 people in Ireland live lives with a quality of life reduced significantly by sight loss.

 

As people live longer and grow older, their sight will weaken and ultimately diminish.  NCBI represents the interests not only of the 9,000 people with whom it works, but is also concerned for the welfare and well being of the many who avail of no services at all.  NCBI must also have regard for those people with low vision who are likely to require support services over the coming years arising from factors of life-style and ageing conditions. 

 

NCBI is impatient to see service improvements made in the arrangements for funding services offered to vision-impaired people, and also in those statutory payment schemes upon which vision-impaired people rely to sustain themselves.  The schemes are identified in this Pre-Budget Submission and recommendations are made for improvements.

 

Blind and partially sighted people, and their health-funded services, are perceived by the vision-impaired sector as being low in funding priorities relative to other disability categories.  There is often a “disconnect” between the espoused language of “inclusion” and the in-use practice of prematurely shepherding people into forms of provisions which sometimes isolate people from and within their own communities. NCBI says that there is sometimes an over-emphasis in the creation of programme and design of schemes which favour centre-based provisions, including residential care, and these work against the NCBI ethos and forms of service deliveries of sustaining people in their own communities. 

 

NCBI is particularly concerned that government should pay particular attention to ensuring that people with significant sight loss in their older years gain access to services which would have been available to them were they to be under the age of sixty-five years.  Compartmentalising funding streams by programmes is leading to inequities which will only worsen in time if not addressed in the early years of the new HSE.  Older people with vision-impairments should be entitled to an increase of service provision and, not as might happen, a reduction in them.

 

The eight recommendations in this submission are framed around submissions NCBI has been making in the course of our last Pre-Budget Submissions.  We trust that our strategy of repeating and reminding Government will ultimately bring recognition for the arguments we present for improvements in core statutory provisions. NCBI also argues for funds to be released from the capital programme to meet the cost of improving the service provisions which are provided out of NCBI’s property at

Whitworth Road

, and which is in urgent need of refurbishment.  Modernising this premises will ensure that as NCBI celebrates 75 years of service to vision-impaired people, resources are being put in place to guarantee quality services into the future.

 

 National Council for the Blind of Ireland

20 October 2005.