Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. O'Brien, Mr. McLoughlin and their colleagues. I have three items I wish to raise. The first issue, about which I have put the HSE on alert, is the HIQA report on the accident and emergency department at University Hospital Limerick. The second issue is that of salary top-ups, and the third item is medical cards. In saying this I am not being personal, but there has been a good deal of talk about the process and so forth. I find it slightly ironic that we can read in an article in one of today's newspapers that 148 people are fighting over top-ups while people have been contacting us for the past six months about their medical cards, many of whom are elderly people who are petrified that they will lose their cards. I ask about the whole morality of this. I, as a public representative, do not think I have ever been as angry. Other people have come to us telling us that their medical cards have been pulled. They have gone to their local pharmacist or GP completely unaware that this has happened, and have been told in front of a crowded pharmacy, where they have probably shopped for the past 20 or 30 years, that their medical card has been pulled. That comes down to administration. I will return to this point, but I want to put it in context. The Chairman has also referred to this. We are talking about it in very abstract terms, but this is about real people's lives - about people losing their medical cards - and there must be questions about the process involved.

I want to move on to the top-ups. Much of this area has been covered. With regard to the range of the top-ups involved, what is the top top-up? Am I correct in saying there are 148 people involved?