asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason his Department have discontinued recognising certificates of disability from bonesetters as proof of disability for the purpose of qualifying for disability benefit.

In the normal course certificates of incapacity for work are accepted only from registered medical practitioners with whom the Department have an agreement. The Department have been reviewing their procedures for the control of claims to sickness benefit and in this connection the acceptance of certificates from persons other than registered medical practitioners was discontinued.

In the past exceptions were made in the case of certain established bonesetters and certificates will continue to be accepted from such persons for the time being pending an overall review of certification procedures.

Is it possible to obtain from the Department a list of the bonesetters who are acceptable to the Department? A number of people have experienced extreme hardship in view of the fact that certificates from certain bonesetters were acceptable but due to reviews in the Department those bonesetters are not now acceptable as official on the Department's list. Would it not be reasonable to ask the Department to make a public announcement about the issuing and acceptance of certificates from bonesetters in order to alleviate a lot of the hardship being caused by certificates being returned to applicants?

When the case in question came to my attention I took steps to have the position rectified. The position is rectified as of now. The certificates from the long established bonesetters will be accepted pending an overall review of certification procedures. I assure the Deputy that if there is any change in the procedure it will be adequately publicised so that people will be fully aware of the situation. At the moment the position is unchanged so far as the long established bonesetters are concerned.

In the Minister's constituency a certain bonesetter, who is long established, has now found that his certificates have been returned by the Department.

The bonesetter in question has been told by me that the opposite is the position now and he will be told if there is any change in that situation.

The patients of the bonesetter have not been notified. There has not been any public announcement.

I presume when the bonesetter in question was notified by me that he told his patients.

Do the Department send the ordinary circulars, which they send to medical certifiers, to bonesetters?

The Department have never entered into agreements with non-medical persons over whom they have no sanction in the matter of certification. About 15 years ago the then medical adviser in the Department agreed to accept certificates from a bonesetter and over the years the practice evolved of accepting certificates from a number of others. For some years past a considerable number of claims, estimated to be 400 or 500 a year, were based on the certification of one of these bonesetters but there never has been an agreement entered into with any non-medical people.

Surely it is in the interests of everybody that these people are notified of changes in the Department. Is it correct that the Minister recognises these certificates but not the certifier?

The main point in the whole exercise is that the patient gets paid. It is extremely difficult to draw up guidelines for acceptance of certificates from non-medical practitioners. There is a whole new range of non-medical practitioners, as I am sure the Deputy will appreciate, not alone in bonesetting but in all other types of medical activities. That is one of the reasons which prompted a review of the situation some months ago. A number of requests came in from additional people who claimed to have some healing and remedial powers. It became extremely difficult to draw the line as to who should and who should not be recognised. A decision was taken to accept only the purely medical certifiers and this resulted in understandable hardship in a number of cases, particularly for the long established bonesetters and their patients. This has been rectified for the time being. If there is to be a change I assure the House that it will be notified to all the people concerned in ample time so that they will know exactly what their position is.

Would the Minister accept that the hardship in this particular case arose because the Department made a decision and did not communicate that decision to the bonesetter because they did not recognise him?

I agree that the decision should have been notified at the time but so far as it has been possible to remedy that situation it has now been remedied. I understand that the claimants for disability benefit, whose payment was delayed, have since been paid. If there are still any outstanding cases who have not been paid in respect of this kind of certificate and they are brought to the notice of the Department they will be attended to.

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