Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 17, line 12, after "assessor" to insert the following:

", vocational rehabilitation assessor, labour market integration expert or other specialist placement officer".

We discussed partial capacity benefit in great detail on Second Stage and I welcome the Minister's initiatives in this regard. I raised at that time whether it is only necessary for people to be assessed medically and said that I believed they should also be assessed socially. It is undesirable and demeaning to require a person with a disability to be repeatedly examined and assessed for the purpose of receipt of various rights and entitlements. Duplication of assessments should be avoided where another Department has authorised a recent assessment of a disability. Thus, section 8 of the Disability Act 2005 provides for the assessment of a person with a disability on request. Its commencement is awaited by many young people and adults. Section 8 provides for the HSE to assess the needs for services and this is already the case. The Act provides for reports of such assessments to be provided to applicants.

On commencement of the Disability Act 2005, with regard to assessment of need for adults, it would be undesirable and a waste of public resources to repeat such assessments for the purposes of ascertaining partial capacity for work.