While I appreciate the position of the GPs on the principle that the labourer is worthy of his or her hire and because of the additional workload placed on them, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the disabled are not left once again at the mercy of the system. Medical officers in the Midland Health Board previously carried out the assessment of applicants for the disabled person's grant but because of staffing pressures, this system was discontinued in 2002. Subsequently, a letter was issued to Longford GPs outlining the new requirements, under which doctors were requested to fill in medical forms on behalf of their patients. GPs rightly resisted taking on this extra work without payment and, through the IMO, requested the €65 fee.

The main area of contention is that this additional workload was imposed on GPs without consultation. People were coming into surgeries expecting the forms to be completed without any prior notification from the relevant authorities. The completion of medical certificates is not provided for within the GMS contract. Who will pay these fees? The Government will not pay while Longford County Council and other local authorities in the region are unable to pay due to budgetary shortfalls. Local authorities are not funded for this sort of expenditure. Matters are at a virtual standstill, leaving an unacceptable backlog of applicants waiting to have essential works carried out in their homes. This grant is essential to ensure that the disabled can have a reasonable standard of mobility and normality in their own homes. It enables them to have remedial aids such as ramps, walk-in showers and rails installed.

It has been stated over and over again in this House and in the Dáil that the weakest in our society are bearing the brunt of the Government's financial ineptitude. This must stop. The disabled are not pawns in the game of budgetary cutbacks and financial irresponsibility. It is a national disgrace and symptomatic of the heartless approach of the Government that fiscal rectitude could in any circumstances take precedence over the provision of basic needs for the disabled. I am asking the Minister to take the pressure off those who are least able to bear the burden. He should show some heart and look after our disabled and elderly.

Perhaps the Minister will explain what the Government intends to do to resolve this impasse because this is a serious problem in the midlands. Elderly people, disabled people and those who are in pain are waiting to have necessary repairs to their houses carried out under the disabled person's grant, but their medical certificates are not being signed so the local authority is not in a position to process their applications. Those people need some quality of life. They are the most vulnerable people in our society and everyone's heart bleeds for them. I appeal to the Minister to do something about this issue.

I have made inquiries of the Midland Health Board about this matter and it has been explained to me that the board has no statutory function in the administration of the disabled person's grant. The Government is aware of the importance of this grant in helping to meet the accommodation needs of disabled persons, but the operation of the disabled person's grant scheme at local level is the responsibility of local authorities and one in which neither the Minister for Health and Children nor the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has any direct function. Authorities operate within a framework laid down in statutory regulations, which is designed to give them an appropriate degree of flexibility in administering the scheme. It is for local authorities to decide the level of funding to be provided for disabled person's and essential repairs grants in their area from within the capital allocation notified to them by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. That Department's involvement in the scheme relates primarily to the recoupment by authorities of two thirds of their expenditure on each grant. The balance of one third of the cost is funded from the authorities' own resources from an amount included for that purpose in their annual estimates.

The Senator raised the issue of the payment of fees to a general practitioner for medical certificates. The Midland Health Board has confirmed that the provision of such certification is not part of the GMS contract and that such an arrangement is a private matter between the doctor and the patient. I was not aware of this matter, which seems to arise only in the Midland Health Board region, and I am not happy with it. I will investigate whether there is anything further I can do. I agree that what is happening is appalling. The people applying for the disabled person's grant have enough problems without this one. In this case it seems the problems are being added to by the general practitioners – it is unfair to blame the Government. The problem is peculiar to the Midland Health Board area. I will investigate and reply to the Senator directly.