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

To answer Deputy Ó Snodaigh, as is the case for all staff in the Department, the need for medical assessors is kept under constant review. Everybody in the House realises that while we have quite a young population at present, we face very large challenges in the future, and it will have to be reviewed by future Governments as time goes on. As the make-up of the population changes there will be demands not only on social protection but also on health and other services. It will have to be constantly kept under review. The medical assessors will operate as they do at present. The Deputy can correct me if I am wrong, but his concern is that when they were introduced in England they were paid on a results basis according to the number of people they knocked off the system. I reassure the Deputy that this is not my intention, nor that of the Tánaiste. Our intention is to have a more practical operational mechanism in the Department. As I outlined earlier, we will recruit more permanent people. The intention is not to do as the Deputy outlined, which is payment based on results, whereby medical assessors would be paid on the basis of the number of people to whom they disallow benefit. This is certainly not my intention, and I would view it as being quite serious if this operational procedure was introduced in the Department. I would not be at all happy with such a mechanism with regard to dealing with people in a respectful and dignified manner. I give the House this commitment.

I know what Deputy Boyd Barrett is trying to do, but we are trying to have flexibility. Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 tabled by Deputy Boyd Barrett and Joan Collins would significantly restrict the circumstances in which medical assessors would be engaged through agency arrangements. This would likely make the system unworkable and would remove the flexibility required in the new arrangement. We are actively engaging; four new doctors have been recruited and will start on 27 April if they take up the positions, and the indications at the moment are that they will. We will hold another similar competition. On Committee Stage, Deputy Collins asked about their salary. Everyone in the House is on a respectable salary; I can certainly live on it, as can anyone else in the House. There are restrictions in the way the Deputies have formatted the proposals. We will hold a competition to recruit more doctors for the panel. On any one day we have between 17 and 19 doctors available for medical assessments, and we want to ensure we have efficiencies. We will deal with the backlog that Deputy O'Dea spoke about in a Private Members' debate. I have a strong commitment to this. There is a willingness and commitment in the Department to reduce as much as possible any backlog that exists.

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