Mr. Paul Fitzsimons:

Good evening. My name is Paul Fitzsimons. I am 56-year-old married man. I have two sons and two grandsons. Jane has not mentioned that there are probably five of us in the whole country who have this very rare cancer and have lost our arms as a result of it. It is hard to deal with that type of stuff. I lost my arm back in 2019. Previously, I had been a driver with Dublin Bus for many years. My whole life revolved around having my arm. I played guitar in a band, rode motorcycles and had a really good life. It was all turned upside down when I lost my arm back in 2019 as a result of sarcoma cancer. I was operated on in St. James' Hospital.

I applied for the primary medical certificate on two occasions. I did so most recently in January, when I was turned down again. I am a big advocate for upper body amputees. I am chairman of one of newest clubs that is growing in west Dublin. It is a soccer club. We have more than 100 people between the ages of 18 and 24 playing every week. With regard to the primary medical certificate, if I am not mobile, I cannot do my voluntary services in the community. It is a big thing for me to be mobile and independent. I have two grandkids who are my whole life. As Jane says, I still change nappies, even as a grandparent. My wife and I mind them during the daytime. I am involved in various other clubs too.

There is a little story I would like to tell the committee. When I had my arm taken off, a very good friend of mine had the lower part of his left leg taken off. He is a very strong individual. He got a prosthetic leg. He is now jogging on that leg. When he sits in an automatic car, he does not need his left leg to drive it. When I came out of hospital, I could not get any help with a car. I had to borrow money to try to buy an automatic car. That is where I was with that. There is a funny story. The two of us went into Lidl. I was trying to hold a bag open and put my messages into it with one hand, and the bag wanted to close itself as I picked up one of the things I bought. In the end, he was there with one leg holding the bag and I was there with one arm loading it.

There are little things, as Ms O'Keeffe said, if the committee members take a little time today when they go home, take their arm out of their jacket, zip it up and see how they get on for an hour. It is not easy to do. I have the highest respect for all these guy here who are in wheelchairs who are missing lower limbs but with the CRPD, we are being discriminated against as upper-body amputees. There are over 1,000 people trying to achieve a primary health certificate at present. It is not a lot to ask for. People should be granted this.

There is a guy who is probably the poster boy for robotic arms. I was very lucky to have a really strong community around me and through all sorts of fund-raising, I got a bionic arm but because they are a bit finicky, it has spent more time over in England than it has on the end of my arm. This particular guy up the North's name is Stephen Lowry. He is well known. If anybody knows of the Ottobock centre, he is the poster boy for it. He gets everything paid for because he is in Northern Ireland. He comes down here to deal with the Ottobock centre. If I want to insure the arm I have for three years, it would cost €15,000. I am on invalidity pension and do not have that money. Basically, it means at the end of the two years that the insurance has been provided for, the hand that cost €31,000 and the lower arm, which was paid for by the HSE and which costs €28,000, will become a paperweight. If anything goes wrong, I will not have the money to go and pay for the update of that. It does not make sense to me for the Government to pay €28,000 towards an arm that will become a paperweight. In my opinion, they should at least be providing the updates and coverage of the insurance.

As regards amputees, I was turned down as well for the parking badge - the blue badge. When I come out of a shopping centre now, I have to park miles down and walk by empty wheelchair bays. If you have ever tried to push a shopping trolley in a car park with one hand, you would do well to not get sued for damaging somebody's car because all of those shopping trolleys have a mind of their own - they go everywhere. It is merely one difficulty. When going through airports and taking off your arm in front of people, you have got to ring ahead, get a room, go in and get your checks done offside because while it does not bother me, I am sure other people do not want to see a fellow my size stripping off at the airport. It is not doable. It is not right. A little humanity could be shown to us.

There is a bit of discrimination going on with the primary health certificate. Mobility is everything in this country. If you can get out and have independence, you can be involved with society. You can be involved with the community. If you take that away from people, they are prisoners. That is where we are.

I do not want to go any further on this but that is my point of view here today. Much of the other stuff was covered by Mr. Digan and I am sure the other two speakers here beside me will cover the rest of it. I thank the committee.