Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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171. To ask the Minister for Finance if there are any proposals to review the current qualifying criteria in respect of primary medical certificates; if his Department will consider revising the criteria to allow primary medical certificates to be issued on a shorter term basis, open to reviewing on-going long-term medical conditions and associated levels of mobility; if there is a need to seek to include those affected primarily in childhood by medical conditions which currently cannot be diagnosed definitively as affecting mobility for the duration of a person's lifetime; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22844/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Section 134(3) of the Finance Act 1992 (as amended) and Statutory Instrument No. 353 of 1994 (Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Regulations, 1994) (as amended) provide for permanent relief from the payment of specified maximum amounts of VAT and VRT for persons registered under the scheme.

The disability criteria for eligibility for the tax concessions under this scheme are set out in the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Regulations 1994. To get the Primary Medical Certificate, an applicant must be severely and permanently disabled and satisfy one of the following conditions:

a) be wholly or almost wholly without the use of both legs;

b) be wholly without the use of one leg and almost wholly without the use of the other leg such that the applicant is severely restricted as to movement of the lower limbs;

c) be without both hands or without both arms;

d) be without one or both legs;

e) be wholly or almost wholly without the use of both hands or arms and wholly or almost wholly without the use of one leg;

f) have the medical condition of dwarfism and have serious difficulties of movement of the lower limbs.

The Senior Medical Officer (SMO) for the relevant local Health Service Executive administrative area makes a professional clinical determination as to whether an individual applicant satisfies the medical criteria. An unsuccessful applicant can appeal the decision of the SMO to the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal, which makes a new clinical determination in respect of the individual.

There is no provision by which the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal can issue a primary medical certificate without reviewing the appellant although s/he can reapply locally after 6 months from the date of the first review with medical evidence of a deterioration in his/ her condition.

I have no plans at present to change the qualification criteria.