Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleagues in thanking the delegations and thank the Carers Association and the DFI for providing services. I do not run clinics or deal with people in my local area. Most of what I deal with comes from ten or 20 years ago when I worked in Citizens Information in Limerick. I want the Department to address my point. There was then and, from what I hear today, still is a suggestion that there is a lack of trust in the evidence submitted from GPs. How does the Department assess on paper what a GP has assessed about a person? An individual presenting with back pain, for example, can be found by one GP to be suffering from a debilitating illness, but can be assessed by another as capable of doing something. A GP can assess that type of thing.

From what I have heard here, the default position seems to be to refuse an application and let the appeal decide. I may be wrong.