Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is no subject I have been more frustrated by when dealing with it over at least 25 or 30 years. Again and again it has come up. Mr. Deering mentioned in his introduction, what I would call inconsistencies, in the determination of whether a person qualified or not. I could never understand it. The reference to partly or wholly the loss of one or both arms. What does that mean? I could never understand what it meant, and nobody else could understand it either. It was either one or the other. The question that would arise was: if the two were gone, would that qualify? The answer was not necessarily, but if one was gone maybe it would. I know people who, unfortunately, were disqualified at least 30 years ago and have never qualified. It becomes a question of rubber stamping after the appeal, and then a further appeal is just refused automatically. It may be unfair to say that, but that is the way it was, and it is.

The late Mr. Martin Naughton did a lot of work for people with disabilities. He and I had discussions that far back on this particular issue. It is without doubt shameful that it took this long. There is no reason in this wide earthly world one person who has a similar disability to another person, who is equally disabled, qualifies for the primary medical certificate and the other does not. It is absolutely shameful as far as I am concerned. I do not know whether it is a financial thing, but it sounds like a financial matter. If it is a financial matter then it needs to be attended to on the basis that it is grossly unfair to the people who are the victims. People with such difficulties have enough problems without further imposing more difficulty upon them.

Let us consider two people who have a disability, whatever that disability is. They may not be identical. One person might be quite upfront and anxious to take up a full place in the workplace, and be able to do that. Another person with a similar disability may not. They may have psychological problems or problems around confidence in their own ability, all of which must be taken into account. It is time to put an end to the practice of disqualifying a person arbitrarily on the basis that he or she does not tick a box. I will certainly bring this up at our parliamentary party meeting again, and hopefully as a result of the Ombudsman's deliberations and discussions, and his important intervention, it will be dealt with. I hope so.

I thank members for attending and for taking a particular interest in this very important and sensitive subject. I thank our guests or witnesses - I am not sure of the right term - for their fundamental contributions which hopefully will have the desired results.