Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to be associated with the Minister's remarks about the staff in the Department. The Minister said that the IMO was consulted. The Minister must be aware that the IMO only represents approximately 18%, fewer than one in five of practitioners who have to certify people for illness benefit. If I heard her correctly, the Minister also said that individual GPs were informed shortly before the new forms went out. My information is that the prescribing GP simply got all these new forms with a whole lot of different information and different questions from what had hitherto been the case and was simply told to get on with it without any consultation or discussion. I think the Minister has accepted that this is not a proper way to do business.

What percentage of GPs are using the new forms at present? Are there residual difficulties as a result of the fact that the full transition has not taken place?

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