Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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109. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form a breakdown of the numbers of applications for social welfare payments that involve a medical assessment by payment type; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25006/14]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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110. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of medical assessors used by her Department to assess applications for social welfare payments broken down by grade, responsibility and the number that can approve a medical assessment on an application; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25007/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 109 and 110 together.

In order to provide a medical review & assessment service (MRAS) in support of its medical related schemes, DSP has a cadre of 27 Medical Assessors (MAs), including a Chief Medical Assessor (CMA) and a Deputy Chief Medical Assessor (DCMA). Currently, there are 21.8 serving MAs including the CMA and the DCMA. MAs are on an equivalent grade scale as Principal Officer. The medical assessments are carried out across all schemes by any one of the MAs employed by the Department. All the MAs undertake in-person assessments in the medical review and assessment centres on a rota basis across all schemes. All medical assessments and medical reviews are undertaken by MAs who are fully qualified medical practitioners and who have experience and specialist training/qualifications in occupational medicine as well as in human disability evaluation. The assessment is made in accordance with the Department's evidence-based medical guidelines and protocols. MAs do not diagnose, prescribe treatment nor offer advice.

The MAs work under the overall control of the Department's CMA and Deputy CMA. Their role is to assess a person's fitness for work, either their usual work or in respect of other categories of work, and/or the degree of a person's disability and to provide advice to the Department’s deciding officers in relation to eligibility for the various schemes.

The information requested by the Deputy in relation to applications received is detailed in the following tabular statement.

* The Respite Care Grant (RCG) is an annual payment made to full-time carers who satisfy certain conditions. RCG is payable automatically to carers who are in receipt of carer’s allowance, domiciliary care allowance or prescribed relative allowance on the first Thursday in June of the relevant year. The RCG applications for carers in receipt of the aforementioned schemes are included in the figures of their primary schemes. RCG is also paid to certain other carers providing full-time care but not in receipt of the above payments. These are stand-alone payments and the number of such applications received is shown above.