Dr. Cara McDonagh:

The officials in the Department for Finance always acknowledged our concerns but there was never a formal response to the letter at a higher level. Our mistake was we should have sent the letter directly to the Minister for Finance at the time. We sent it to the officials we dealt with. We felt it would be brought to the Minister's attention. I cannot say whether it was or not. They always acknowledged our concerns but we were told there was not an appetite in the Department to change the scheme. They acknowledged it was difficult for us at times. During that phase we had a lot of very angry, aggrieved people. That would not be infrequent but it was a particularly bad phase. I was stood down from being chairperson at the time. I was on leave on the days we did the clinic and Dr. McNamara was the chair. The other board members decided on the letter. I was in total agreement with it and involved in it.

I cannot answer as to why we did not get a response. Maybe we should have pursued it but I followed up verbally and by email. We also had a meeting in 2018 in the Department of Finance and I expressed my concerns then. It was along with Dr. McNamara. I wrote to them by email after that to document that we had discussed the concerns. Nothing happened on foot of that. Before my time as chair, I know predecessors had raised these concerns repeatedly.

The medical criteria are extremely difficult to apply. One does not have to be a medical person to read those and wonder how they could be fairly applied. Even taken as they are, there are many people they exclude who have genuine disability, need adapted vehicles and cannot understand why they cannot access anything. If one has a scheme, it has to be more equitable. Do not have a scheme that only applies to a small percentage of people.

It is not just that the scheme tries to give benefits to those at the severe end of disability. There are certain criteria which allow people who can drive a standard automatic vehicle access the scheme. It really is unfair but I cannot answer as to why we did not get a response.