Cash payments to allow GPs to clear waiting lists for ordinary household aids for disabled people would be introduced by a Fine Gael government, Mr Gay Mitchell TD said yesterday.
The Fine Gael deputy said 4,100 elderly and frail persons in the greater Dublin area were waiting up to three years to be assessed for aids such as stair rails and bath fittings.
"To clear this waiting list, Fine Gael proposes to allow up to £3,000 to be spent in such situations on the say-so of a family doctor alone," he said.
The TD also told a roundtable meeting organised by the Disability Federation of Ireland in Blanchardstown yesterday that over 80 per cent of people with a disability were unemployed, and many who would live independently could not do so because of Government neglect.