Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate what the Minister of State said about trying to recruit extra people to relieve the backlog and make the system more efficient but this is a fairly radical step. I share some of the sentiments expressed by Deputies Ryan, Ó Snodaigh and others. The Minister of State said the deciding officer makes the ultimate decision but in the real world, the deciding officer almost invariably goes on the opinion of the medical assessor. I have dealt with a number of cases where people who were obviously medically quite unfit and in very bad shape were turned down for invalidity pension, disability allowance or some other benefit based on the medical assessment. I could not understand the decision or what the medical assessor was thinking. One of the questions I have been regularly asked over the years is whether the people who make the decision are medically qualified. I have said they are medically qualified, are employees of the Department of Social Protection and are doctors. Now I will have to explain that the person who turned them down could have been a nurse.

As Deputy Ó Snodaigh said, there are definite problems here, judging by the number of successful appeals, where the initial medical assessment goes against the applicant and it is overturned on appeal. The number is pretty scary. The percentage of successful appeals in regard to medically based entitlements where the initial refusal was because the medical assessment was not sufficient is quite scary. There should not be that many successful appeals in a properly functioning system. Therefore, what is being proposed is quite a radical step. I would be interested to know what consultations have taken place. Deputy Ó Snodaigh raises a very interesting question about the rate of payment, which I think will have a huge impact in how the system will operate.