Vol. 395 No. 3
132 Mr. Byrne asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will give details of the number of medical referees serving (a) the Dublin area and (b) the Cork city area; the number of those who are specialists; and the fields in which they specialise.
Medical referees provide a second opinion to that of the person's own doctor for the guidance of the Department's deciding officers and they carry out such medical examinations as are necessary in each particular case.
There are at present 24 referees serving including the medical adviser and the Deputy medical adviser. All referees are fully qualified and experienced medical practitioners. Those serving at present include a specialist in general medicine, a specialist in psychiatry and three who are occupational medical specialists. There are, also, eight referees who are members of the Society of Occupational Medicine of whom three are pursuing advanced courses of occupational medicine.
Referees are not assigned to duties in any particular area of the country and are required to carry out examinations in any of the 72 examination centres located in the major cities and towns including eight centres in Dublin and three centres in Cork city.
Cases for examination are selected by the medical adviser who may decide to assign a particular case to a referee with expertise in the medical area concerned. He will also assign to a different referee a case for a second examination of a claimant who has appealed against a decision of being deemed capable of working on the first examination.
