I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for taking this matter on the Adjournment. Disabled persons in the midland region are caught in an impasse between the Government and general practitioners about the payment of a €65 fee which the Irish Medical Organisation has requested on behalf of its members for the completion of the required medical certificates for disabled person's grant applications.
While I appreciate the position of the GPs on the principle that the labourer is worthy of his or her hire and because of the additional workload placed on them, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the disabled are not left once again at the mercy of the system. Medical officers in the Midland Health Board previously carried out the assessment of applicants for the disabled person's grant but because of staffing pressures, this system was discontinued in 2002. Subsequently, a letter was issued to Longford GPs outlining the new requirements, under which doctors were requested to fill in medical forms on behalf of their patients. GPs rightly resisted taking on this extra work without payment and, through the IMO, requested the €65 fee.
The main area of contention is that this additional workload was imposed on GPs without consultation. People were coming into surgeries expecting the forms to be completed without any prior notification from the relevant authorities. The completion of medical certificates is not provided for within the GMS contract. Who will pay these fees? The Government will not pay while Longford County Council and other local authorities in the region are unable to pay due to budgetary shortfalls. Local authorities are not funded for this sort of expenditure. Matters are at a virtual standstill, leaving an unacceptable backlog of applicants waiting to have essential works carried out in their homes. This grant is essential to ensure that the disabled can have a reasonable standard of mobility and normality in their own homes. It enables them to have remedial aids such as ramps, walk-in showers and rails installed.
It has been stated over and over again in this House and in the Dáil that the weakest in our society are bearing the brunt of the Government's financial ineptitude. This must stop. The disabled are not pawns in the game of budgetary cutbacks and financial irresponsibility. It is a national disgrace and symptomatic of the heartless approach of the Government that fiscal rectitude could in any circumstances take precedence over the provision of basic needs for the disabled. I am asking the Minister to take the pressure off those who are least able to bear the burden. He should show some heart and look after our disabled and elderly.
Perhaps the Minister will explain what the Government intends to do to resolve this impasse because this is a serious problem in the midlands. Elderly people, disabled people and those who are in pain are waiting to have necessary repairs to their houses carried out under the disabled person's grant, but their medical certificates are not being signed so the local authority is not in a position to process their applications. Those people need some quality of life. They are the most vulnerable people in our society and everyone's heart bleeds for them. I appeal to the Minister to do something about this issue.