Ms Imelda O'Donovan:

There is a huge difficulty. It is a matter of looking at the people carrying out the assessments. Do they know what long Covid is? For many patients making these submissions, what they have on paper is long Covid. People who tend to go down the private route may have other conditions, such as fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions, diabetes or whatever else. They can have other things on their page so they have a better chance of being approved. The ones who are going with just long Covid, however, generally are not getting approved and have to go through an appeal process, and that involves paperwork and cognitive ability, which is the thing being undermined here. They are reaching out to TDs to help them in the appeal process. What we are looking for is that the assessors are trained as to what long Covid is. We need recognition of it. If the Government were to recognise long Covid as an occupational illness, that would help enormously the people applying for disability and invalidity pension.