asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason recipients of disability benefit and invalidity pension are being constantly recalled for medical examinations as in the case of persons (details supplied) in Dublin 11; and whether he is concerned that this amounts to harassment in some cases.

Medical control is a necessary part of the administration of the disability benefit and invalidity pensions schemes to ensure that claimants have the required degrees of illness or disability for entitlement. This control is exercised through medical referees to whom claimants are referred from time to time for examination for the purpose of obtaining second medical opinions as to incapacity for work.

The factors which determine how cases are selected are broadly the nature and duration of the illness and any recommendation regarding re-examination which a medical referee might make having examined a person.

In the cases referred to by the Deputy, the persons concerned had previously been examined by medical referees from my Department, who recommended that they be referred for further examinations after a specified period to confirm their incapacity for work.

There is no question of harassing individuals — it is simply a question of being clear as to a person's continuing entitlement to payment.

A Cheann Comhairle——

Sorry, Deputy this refers to a specific case. I cannot allow any extension of that.

I am familiar with the case because Deputy Durkan gave me the details.

That does not alter the situation. It refers to a particular case.

I intend to confine my questions to that.

This is unusual, Deputy.

Will the Minister indicate whether it is normal practice when a person has been declared entitled to invalidity pension, which by its nature suggests that they would be incapable of working for life——

Sorry, we are having an extension of the subject matter——

It is not.

I thought the Deputy was referring to the specific case.

I am referring to the specific case of the number 2 person invalidity pension there, who has been called for medical examination twice, two months after being awarded an invalidity pension which is meant to be a pension for life.

Is the Deputy familiar with the name?

The name is Johnson, Mr. Paul Johnson of Blanchardstown.

That is not my information.

There are two cases there.

There are two cases.

There is a Mr. Kelly from Ballymun and a Mr. Johnson. Is the medical control in this case Gestapo tactics?

Not at all. If the Deputy would like I will give her the history——

Since names have been mentioned, let us be judicious about it.

Without going into detail I will give the history. It is a fact that the person concerned has been found variously capable and incapable at different stages. When a medical examiner makes a note to have the person re-examined in so many months, that is one of the factors that contributes to a person being re-examined.

A person on an invalidity pension?

The person concerned has been on invalidity pension from June 1986 and is currently in receipt of pension at the rate appropriate to a married man with three qualified child dependants. He applied for a transfer from disability benefit to invalidity pension on 11 June 1986 and at that stage a medical referee said he was not permanently incapable of work and decided not to award him invalidity pension. He appealed against this and was re-examined on 30 January 1987 by a different medical referee who also expressed the opinion that he was not permanently incapable of work and requested that he be referred for a further examination in six months time. That is quite normal. When a year from the date of the original application had elapsed it was considered that he satisfied the permanently incapacitated condition as set out in SI 218 of 1970 and he was awarded invalidity pension from 12 June 1986. Regular medical reviews have been carried out since he was awarded invalidity pension and he was found capable of work by a medical referee on 2 October 1989 and was disallowed from 26 October. He appealed again against that decision. Most of the examinations as the Deputy will see are as a result of appeals. He appealed again and was examined by a second medical referee who at that stage expressed the opinion that he was incapable of work and requested that he be referred for examination in a further two months.

They put him back on pension which is meant to be a lifetime pension.

It is not actually.

What is the qualification for one to be considered permanently incapable?

The pension applies for a reasonable period——

On the basis of permanent incapacity.

It is not lifetime.

I am afraid we cannot devote an inordinate amount of time to this question.

The pension is not necessarily for life, but for a reasonable period.

But you have to be permanently incapacitated.

If the medical referee at the time says that the person should be examined in two months, then that is what will be done.

Question No. 18 please.

The pension was restored from 7 December 1989 and that is the position.

Can I ask a brief supplementary on that?

I thought we had devoted a long time to this question.

The long time that the Minister has devoted to the reply indicates that, and I would ask him if he does not think it is extraordinary behaviour, when a person who is declared permanently incapable of work and is awarded a pension, that he has twice now been called back within two months to be re-examined. Does it not make a joke of the availability of invalidity pension which the Minister made so much of in his earlier replies in relation to disability pension?

If there is a suggestion by the first medical referee in the case——

Why give him a pension then?

If the first medical referee says the person is now capable of going back to work——

He has a deteriorating arthritic condition.

——and he appeals against that and is given a second medical examination and if the second medical referee says that he is not capable of going back but that somebody should examine the person in question in two months' time, that can happen. These are professional decisions taken by medical referees.

Question No. 18 please.

That is the way the system operates.

Can I ask one question on this?

Yes.