Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. The Minister of State is saying one does not know that one has a disability until someone tells one that one has a disability and yet one will have gone for an assessment. Why would one do that? Is the Minister of State indicating that a person who does not believe he or she has a disability would apply for an assessment and suddenly be informed that he or she has a disability because he or she applied for that assessment? Is he saying that it is during an assessment that such disability will come to light and that a person will suddenly discover, have had no notion beforehand, that he or she is blind, has a hearing impairment, cannot walk or is intellectually restricted?

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