Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their patience. Most of my questions have been answered at this point, but I will raise one broad point about the Green Paper. My reading of the paper is that one of its core proposals is to introduce this medical assessment for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities. I take on board the assurances the witnesses and the Minister have given that this will not be used to cut payments. I accept those assurances, but I am concerned that putting this type of classification structure in place, effectively puts an infrastructure in place that could potentially be used by a future Minister to cut payments.

I also have a related question. Can the witnesses tell me what is the additional cost to the Department of the proposal to medically assess and classify people with disabilities?