A Primary Medical Certificate is required by a person to benefit from the car tax concessions under the Disabled Drivers and Disabled Passengers (Tax Concessions) Scheme. The Primary Medical Certificate (from the Senior Area Medical Officer of the appropriate local Health Service Executive administrative area) certifies for the purposes of the scheme, as set down in the 1994 Regulations, that a person is severely and permanently disabled and satisfies one of the following conditions:
(a) be wholly or almost wholly without the use of both legs;
(b) be wholly without the use of one leg and almost wholly without the use of the other leg such that the applicant is severely restricted as to movement of the lower limbs;
(c) be without both hands or without both arms;
(d) be without one or both legs;
(e) be wholly or almost wholly without the use of both hands or arms and wholly or almost wholly without the use of one leg;
(f) have the medical condition of dwarfism and have serious difficulties of movement of the lower limbs.
This determination is made by a Senior Area Medical Officer on foot of a clinical examination. If the applicant is refused a Certificate, he or she may appeal to the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal, which again carries out a clinical examination of the appellant and may issue a certificate on foot of its findings. If an applicant's condition changes, he or she may apply again for a Certificate. The decision at first instance or on appeal to grant or refuse a Certificate is a clinical decision and I have no role in relation to it. I am not aware of any evidence of decisions to grant/refuse Certificates being made other than according to the applicable medical professional standards.
There are around 9,500 claimants, including drivers and passengers, benefiting under the scheme and the cost to the Exchequer was over €56 million in 2005. Data on the number of individuals who actually purchased a car under the scheme in each of the past seven years is set out in the following table. The figures are based on VRT remitted or repaid data.
Cars purchased in year based on VRT remitted/repaid data
|
Year
|
Drivers
|
Passengers
|
Total
|
|
1999
|
1,337
|
1,199
|
2,536
|
|
2000
|
1,639
|
1,697
|
3,336
|
|
2001
|
1,590
|
1,690
|
3,280
|
|
2002
|
1,672
|
2,046
|
3,718
|
|
2003
|
1,604
|
2,015
|
3,619
|
|
2004
|
1,776
|
2,525
|
4,301
|
|
2005
|
1,884
|
2,729
|
4,613
|
