Mr. Damien Quigley:

There were a couple of questions about the medical assistance scheme. I will give some of the background to how we set up and established the scheme. It was fairly obvious to us, as an organisation, that our job was to help our members in distress. We discovered a large number of our members were facing discharge and unable to continue in service, sometimes because of fairly small medical problems but because they would be on a waiting list for two or three years, they could not satisfy the strict medical criteria involved, which left their careers at an end. Even before we set up the medical assistance scheme, PDFORRA established an MRI scan scheme that is supplementary to the medical assistance scheme. We identified that enlisted members of the Defence Forces had to pay for MRI scans. We encountered a large number of people who needed money to get scans to satisfy the requirement that they were fit for medical service. The MRI scheme was the first thing we set up.

We did a lot of research into how we could provide a value-for-money scheme that members could afford. We looked closely at the EU cross-border healthcare directive, as it was at the time, and made contact with the HSE national contract point, Ms Catherine Donohoe. I must commend Ms Donohoe because she was excellent in the help, guidance and support she offered during the establishment of our scheme. We then met with representatives of the Army, Naval Service, Air Corps, ANSAC, credit union. They were our finance partners, if you like. We established the scheme with hopes and aspirations for what we would be able to do. To date, members have attended more than 1,200 appointments. In total, 274 have received treatment, 150 of whom progressed to surgical intervention. The scheme has far exceeded our projections of what we could or should do. I still have 60 people on my list who are waiting for treatment. There is huge demand for the scheme.

Deputy Clarke is correct about the type of injuries concerned. A large percentage are knee injuries caused by elements of military service, including working on boats, aircraft and carrying a pack over heavy ground. Members of the Defence Forces get injured and that is just a fact of life. A large number of those injuries would be around the knee but ankles and hips are also affected. There have been a large number of general surgeries, for example, to treat hernias. There have been wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries. Ears, noses, throats and eyes have been injured. There have been injuries to anything and everything. We have assisted a number of members to beat cancer through access to treatment, which was very fulfilling.

In developing and moving on, we hope to roll out the scheme to include the families of members. To do that, we would need extra support. In the first instance, we would need the Department of Health to legislate for the Northern Ireland planned healthcare scheme. After Brexit, the EU cross-border directive ceased to apply to the UK so patients can no longer get treatment in the UK under that directive except through the transitional arrangements that are currently in place for anybody who attended before 31 December 2020. Anybody who attends cannot get treatment in Britain but can get treatment in the North, in Belfast or Derry. A large number of-----