Call to waive €60k VAT demand on disability machine

THE Department of Finance was yesterday urged to waive a €60,000 VAT demand on a health machine purchased with voluntary funding.

The machine is helping to improve the quality of life for people with physical disabilities in Limerick and surrounding counties.

The Swiss-made Lokomat machine was installed in the First Step Rehab Centre in Patrickswell five months ago after a massive fundraising effort was launched by Joan Ryan and her husband, Tom, who farms near Cashel.

It enables disabled people to be hoisted on a treadmill and simulate a walk.

Their daughter, Edel, 13, was paralysed in a road accident in 2001 in which Joan also received serious injuries.

Over the past two years, a fundraising initiative, Coiscéim Eile, set up by the Ryans, raised over €200,000 towards the purchase of the Lokomat.

The Swiss manufacturers agreed to accept a deposit on condition that the €300,000 purchase sum was paid off by the end of November. The fundraising was on target to hit that deadline when a VAT demand for €60,000 arrived from Revenue.

Labour’s health finance spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan yesterday called on the Department of Finance to intervene and waive the VAT demand.

She said: “This is a case where the VAT should be written off. People have voluntarily raised money to buy this machine for general use and in doing so have helped the state health service.”

Edel Ryan expects to commence therapy on the Lokomat in Patrickswell in the coming weeks.

Joan Ryan said: “Edel developed a pressure sore on the spine and had to lie on her side for the past 10 weeks. She was confined to home. The pressure sore has healed and we are hoping she can start on the Lokomat in coming weeks.”

“The machine won’t be a cure for Edel, but it will enable her to get good physical exercise,” she said.