Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is not the intention of the Department. There are obvious benefits in being able to use agency medical assessors as required in the case of a backlog. It does not make sense to recruit them on a permanent basis in the long term. Why establish additional services we do not need long term? However, we are committed to keeping the current demand of 25 permanent medical assessors in place. This gives us additional ability to draw on five agency medical assessors as required. I think I explained on Committee Stage that they would be embedded in the Department, they would be given full training and the aim is to carry out the service in a more efficient manner, to deliver a better outcome to applicants and to reduce further the existing backlog. I accept that Deputy Boyd Barrett's amendment was intended to be constructive. However, the ability to access agencies gives us additional flexibility in that regard. I accept the good intentions and the merits of what he outlines, but I would like to see us making significant inroads into that backlog. At the moment, we should be looking at a permanent base of about 25 medical assessors, with the possibility of drawing on five additional agency medical assessors as required to deal with that backlog. For that reason, I do not propose to accept the amendments.

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