Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I welcomed the automatic entitlement of people aged over 70 for the medical card. At the time I felt that it acknowledged the people who worked so hard, lived frugally and gave enormous sacrifice to bring our country to where it was. Unfortunately, Fianna Fáil did not see it that way but rather saw it as a pitch for the grey vote in advance of the 2002 general election. It carried out no prior calculations to determine the costs and the number of people involved and seriously underestimated this situation.

If I may put forward a word to describe this action by the Government last week, it is "lousy". One man who wrote to me said it was the lousiest thing any Government had ever done to the old and vulnerable in this society. He said the Government gave the banks the kid glove attitude but when it came to the old and vulnerable they put the boot in. Shame on this Government and the way it has treated the elderly people of our country.

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