Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and speakers. I apologise for being a little late. The first thing that jumped off the page, when I arrived, was that €3.4 billion is spent on various illness and care-related payments. One must be specific when dealing with such a large amount of money. Nowadays, it is important to ensure that every "i" is dotted and every "t" is crossed because that was not done in the past, leading to huge confusion and creating a lot of doubt among people.

I seek clarification of the following matter. I deal with people who seek illness and disability payments. I cannot understand why people must return to their GP or consultant three or four times and it leads to a lot of confusion. The medical forms are very complex but I can understand why that is the case. The Department wants to retrieve as much information as possible. The way some questions are laid out can be very confusing for a lot of people and, therefore, simplifying the questions might be helpful.

I have never asked the following question before. Are all applications viewed by doctors? If so, how many people are granted their appeal following more evidence being submitted? When applications are turned down people can lodge an appeal. Are appeals successful because more information has been given? Do appeals go through a different process? If the information already existed then the initial decision must not have taken everything into account.

The form is frustrating to fill out. It is a large amount of money and for transparency and everything else, I have no problem with a form being as much as 40 pages in length as long as the form and questions are simple. I have noticed that some of the questions have been duplicated which can confuse a lot of people. I suggest the questions are more simplistic.

I agree with one of the other speakers that the people who look for a disability allowance, or whatever it may be, are already dealing with an illness. The process of filling out forms can be complicated when one is not in the right place. As a public representative, when people come into my clinic or visit me it takes me half an hour to go through each form with them. Is there online assistance or a telephone helpline to assist people when filling out a form? Yes, there is.