John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to be associated with the comments made by my colleagues on the death of John Connor. John served for a long time as a Member of Dáil Éireann and of Seanad Éireann. Indeed, when Longford was in the same constituency as Roscommon, there were some very close battles between him and the late Louis Belton. On each occasion, though, where either Louis or John lost their Dáil seat, they managed to return to this much more august Chamber in which the standard of the debate is naturally higher.

One of the reasons I wanted to have a chat with the Acting Leader today was to ask for a debate to be held at some point in the future about social protection. We have a very good social protection and welfare system in this country. I think we can all agree with this. Like any organisation or system, though, parts of it need to be tweaked and made better. One area where I would like to see this happen concerns those people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis, ME. People who have chronic fatigue syndrome are entitled to illness benefit. That is what they go on and what they can avail of, and that is fine.

Like most people who end up being on long-term illness benefit, however, they will transfer at some stage to the invalidity payment. The benefit of doing that is it means people will get contributions towards their pensions, when that time comes. Chronic fatigue syndrome, however, is not currently considered by the Department of Social Protection as an illness allowing people to go onto the invalidity scheme. I think this is wrong and needs to be tweaked.

One of the reasons for this situation is that it is very difficult to establish a diagnosis for chronic fatigue syndrome because it affects everyone in various different ways. One thing I would like to see discussed in a wider debate about social protection, therefore, is how we can get the proper entitlements that the people who suffer from this illness deserve. I am sure this is something my colleague, the Deputy Leader of this House, Senator Doherty, would have been aware of when she led that Department as a Minister. A wider debate around this issue, then, would be welcome. People who have chronic fatigue syndrome should be allowed to get the invalidity payment, which would allow them to claim proper pension rights as well.