Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will know and appreciate, those assessments are not done by me or even my officials. They are done by the medical assessors who work on behalf of the Department to assess the extent to which somebody has a disability or is in need of full-time care. I acknowledge where the Deputy is coming from and his point is very valid. The tradition in Ireland has been to assess a physical disability and not to acknowledge fully that somebody who may have mental health issues may be severely disabled as a result. For many reasons, including stigma and discrimination in the past, this has not been properly recognised or fully understood. There are people who are just as disabled as somebody with a physical disability but because it is a mental health condition or an intellectual disability, this might not always be fully or properly recognised. We are in the process of recruiting a new chief medical officer so I might add this to their list of things to consider once appointed.

See this speech in context