Conservatives Daiva Ulbinaitė and Paulė Kuzmickienė propose that from next year, a driving license should no longer be required for a person with a disability to receive compensation for car and its technical adaptation costs. They propose amending the Law on Targeted Compensations, stipulating that the right to compensation should be linked to need, regardless of whether the person drives themselves.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Social Security and Labour states that the proposal is inconsistent with the purpose of such compensation, and furthermore, it would require an additional approximately 11 million euros per year from the state budget.
“This would change the purpose of this compensation – it would no longer be focused on increasing the opportunities for a person with a disability to move independently, but on using the vehicle to meet the person’s needs when it is driven by other persons,” the ministry’s note states.
According to the ministry, other mobility measures are provided for persons who cannot drive due to health reasons: municipal transport services, compensation for individual assistance costs, and transportation to medical institutions.
Furthermore, according to the ministry, differentiated and more flexible legal regulation applies to families raising children with disabilities.
Members of Parliament propose extending the right of such families to receive compensation for a car – to grant it also for impaired mobility function, and not only when the child has been assessed as needing individual assistance of the first or second level.
In the opinion of the Members of Parliament, the current procedure does not sufficiently meet the real needs of persons with disabilities for mobility, safe movement, and dignified participation in society, as compensation is linked to formal criteria that do not always reflect the actual need for adapted transport.
As BNS wrote, D. Ulbinaitė has said that the changes would affect more than 500 people whom “Sodra” refused to grant such compensation last year.
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