Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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186. To ask the Minister for Finance the circumstances in which incapacitated persons applying for a primary medical certificate, can have their medical examination carried out in provincial centres, as opposed to travelling to Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin; his views that it is unfair to expect severely incapacitated persons to make such journeys; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3825/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, a Primary Medical Certificate is required to claim the tax reliefs provided under the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Scheme. The Senior Medical Officer for the relevant local Health Service Executive administrative area makes a professional clinical determination as to whether an individual applicant satisfies the medical criteria to receive a Primary Medical Certificate. An unsuccessful applicant can appeal the decision of the Senior Medical Officer to the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal, which makes a new clinical determination in respect of the individual.

Hearings of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal are held on average twice a month at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, which has the facilities to cater for people with mobility-impairing disabilities of the kind provided for under the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers Scheme.

I am informed by the Medical Board of Appeal that they do hold regional clinics as demand arises. Regional clinics were held at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork City in June 2012, August 2013 and October 2014.

The Deputy will appreciate that Regulation 6(1)(e) of the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Regulations 1994 (S.I. 353 of 1994) provides that the Medical Board of Appeal is independent in the exercise of its functions.