Mr. John McKeon:

There is a process. One of the things the Deputy will see in the regulations, and he mentioned oral hearings, is the right to request an oral hearing and the right to get a reason if an oral hearing is not granted. That is an improvement. The other thing in the regulations is that where new medical evidence is brought forward, the appeals officer will have recourse to getting a medical assessor to advise them on that new medical evidence.

When the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General carried out its review in May 2019 to 2020, it highlighted that 70% of appeals contained significant additional information that was not there at decision stage. At the moment, it is down to a lay appeals officers to consider whether that additional evidence has merit. We are saying they will have access to a medical assessor who will tell them whether it has merit.

On medical appeals general, the attitude of our medical assessor is not to deny people their entitlement but to look for bona fide reasons. They are looking for reasons to grant it rather than reasons not to. They will say that a doctor in the initial case might say that everything is profound or significant. When the treatment plan, which we also ask for, is looked at, it does not stack up with the idea an issue is profound. Although the doctor says the health issue is profound, the treatment is not material or does not stack up. That will obviously cause a doubt. There must be a level. That is why we have medical assessors who can interpret the information rather than lay people looking at it. Medical doctors and GPs see their role as being advocates. If I ask my personal GP to give an assessment for a social welfare claim, there must be some independent verification of that. It must be independently done by someone who has the medical experience to determine whether the treatment plan is consistent with the diagnosis. They look at those kinds of issues and do not always jump to the idea that because the GP said something, as a consequence, is it not as plain as the spot on your face that this is the reality.

There is no change in attitude. I would challenge that assertion. The role of the Department, and we do our best to carry it out, is to get people over the line. As there is an increase in the prevalence of these claims, there is an increase in fallout, but the percentage fallout is probably about the same. There will always be hard cases. That is why there is a review and appeal mechanism and why I or Mr. Molloy will always accept a representation from a public representative asking us to have another look at an application. We are not perfect. Appeals officers and medical assessors are not perfect. Mistakes will be made but I genuinely hope they are made in a very small minority of cases. I would not like an impression to go out from this meeting that there is a huge number of denials when there is not.