Primary medical certificate appeal
Deputy Farrell described an elderly constituent’s difficult appeal for a primary medical certificate, including language issues and a long journey for assessment. The Minister said he would have officials engage on the case and noted broader reform of the scheme.
I was contacted by an 89-year-old woman who has mobility issues and using a car is her only way to get around and out of the house. She applied for a primary medical certificate and it is quite clear there were serious miscommunication issues because she is a native Irish speaker and the application was done through English. She appealed the decision but, incredulously, she was told she would need to do a 600 km round trip to Dún Laoghaire to be assessed for the appeal. That cannot be serious. This woman is almost 90 years of age and where she lives in Connemara is an hour and a half away from Galway city, let alone to get all of the way up to Dublin. There seems to be a lack of common sense here and I know Deputy Chambers is the Minister for Finance and this falls under his remit. Will he speak to them to see if a bit of common sense could be brought to this situation?
Comment on this
I regret that constituent had to do that for that particular appeal. I will ask my officials to engage with this particular case. More generally, the primary medical certificate has not been working for many years as everyone in the House would agree. That is why intensive work is ongoing to try to reform it and bring about a new scheme to help those who need it. That is part of our wider work, presently, and we have been engaging across Government Departments to try to put a new scheme in place. I will engage on the specific case raised by the Deputy.