Mr. John McKeon:

On the invalidity pension issue, our responsibility is to apply the conditions set down in the legislation which states a person must be permanently incapable of doing any work. That is the criterion. It is determined whether the person will be permanently incapable of doing any work for 12 months. That is what we are obliged to do. I accept that a person who is a painter-decorator might no longer be able to do that work because of a lung problem, but there would be ten other jobs they could do and thus they would not be entitled to receive invalidity pension. That seems to be unfair, but that is the law and we have to apply it. It would be a policy issue if it was to be changed.

Our policy is not to call people in for a review if they have a condition which means that they will be incapable of work or if they require long-term care. If there are instances in which that has happened, the Deputy might let us know about them. Sometimes subjective judgments are made. We have over 30 doctors qualified in the field of occupational medicine and so on who carry out these assessments.