Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Ó Caoláin’s questions about the further roll-out of free GP care, it is correct to say that at a recent meeting the Government decided to bring forward a policy paper in September of this year to address this issue. It may be that the Government is bringing forward some of that work. The Deputy might be pleased to hear that the opportunity has been taken to have discussion of the timelines and the roll-out earlier than September. It would be desirable for the matter to be laid out as specifically as possible. There are constraints on resources and so on but the Deputy is right, the more specific we can be about the future phases and timelines the better. I share his view but cannot give him an absolute undertaking on what that policy document would look like.

On Second Stage of the Bill in the Seanad last week we had some discussion about this and I said there is still considerable potential for moving forward on this matter on the basis of age cohorts, for example, children over the age of six and adults over the age of 70. The Taoiseach advised the Dáil yesterday that the Government is actively considering, which is the phrase I used last week in the Seanad, several categories for the phasing in of the universal GP service such as those over the age of five and the over-70s who are a key cohort to be covered. There is a meeting of minds in Government on that. The over-70s are a key public health priority group. There is no question about that. I understand the Government will return to this matter at its meeting on 22 July. The commitment to bring the discussion forward is important and underscores the Government’s priority of implementing a universal GP service for the entire population within its term of office. I expect the legislation to implement it would be included as a priority in the legislative programme for the autumn.

There is a commitment that the expert panel would report by September of this year.

We will only know whether legislation is required and, if so, to what extent after the expert panel reports as it simply is not possible to pre-empt the report and we will see what it says in September. It is an important area and it is not without complications but this does not mean it cannot be done. If legislation is required, it will be produced, but the process cannot be pre-empted before the report.

Many medical cards that were issued on the basis of discretion were returned and Ms McGuinness might address this as I have not seen the report in a few days. Work is proceeding at a considerable pace.

The Chairman raised the issue of people over 70 years of age. We are discussing a card for general practitioner, GP, services, not the full medical card. The universal primary care project aims to extend free access to GP care at the point of use to the entire population and this entails, as we saw when the scheme was applied to children under six years of age, the extension of a statutory entitlement. The statutory entitlement will be extended to other groups through legislation.