Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That was grand. All that was wrong about it was I was not getting any decision. It had been a month.

Then yesterday, because I followed up on it again because I still was not happy, I got the following reply, and this is where I am baffled. The reply stated that in cases where a medical card is required in emergency circumstances, an emergency medical card may be issued, and it included five examples of the type of emergency. I would presume that the one I am looking at would come under that of a person with a serious medical condition in need of urgent or ongoing medical care.

The reply further stated that emergency applications can be initiated through the local health office the manager of which has access to dedicated contacts in PCRS, that as this person's application was not sent from his local health office his medical card application would not fall under the emergency medical card assessment, that the official could confirm that the application is subject to discretionary assessment and the PCRS is currently reviewing approximately 15,000 discretionary medical cards, and that, as one can appreciate, this can take some time and should be completed in approximately mid-July.