XN000022-1996-12-05 — Page 22

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Transport is particularly important because if you are to open up educational and employment prospects for people with a disability, let alone access to shopping and recreation and entertainment, then it is vital that people who are in a wheelchair or on crutches or who are visually impaired or have hearing impairment should be able to move around as easily as possible.

We have made a very considerable amount of progress on transport issues in the last four years, which is not to sound complacent, there is still a great deal to do. But I think the progress made has been agreed and accepted by the groups representing people with a disability and I think it marks the value of co-operating constructively in trying to deal with the sort of problems that we have faced.

I would like to pay a particular tribute to the groups representing those with a disability, for their patience but determination to get things done. They have been consistently intelligent and forceful in the agenda that they have pursued but they have also been reasonable, they have been persuasive and they have had the good grace to say thank you to the public transport operators when we have seen progress.

I was delighted that since the last summit we have been able to bring up to date our Guide for Public Transport for People with a Disability. I am very pleased at the further progress that the MTRC and KCRC have made in ensuring that people with a disability have, in most of the stations and facilities operated by our rail companies, much better access; they really have made very considerable progress in the last four years and I am grateful to them for their commitment to these objectives.

I am also pleased that we have seen, today, the determination of KMB and Citybus to purchase new buses to add to their existing fleet, with low floor - giving easier access for people with a disability. They, too, have committed themselves wholeheartedly to this project. And I am delighted, as well, that we have seen a continuing increase in the number of routes provided by Rehabus from 41 at the time of the last summit to 53.

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Now, we all know that there is still more to do and there were a number of other improvements that were discussed today and a number of other proposals for the future which were brought forward - but I think that if we can build on what has been achieved so far, then we will give people with a disability the deal which they deserve.

Obviously, it is not for me to say what should happen after July 1, 1997, but I am sure that the Government will in future continue to give these issues a high priority and I am sure that groups with disability will continue to lobby hard and energetically and eloquently for a cause in which all of us believe.

Question: Governor, what do you think about the CMB and the bus (company) on Lantau Island; they did not do much about work for the disabled?