Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

We have to take responsibility for the fear sown in some people's minds and we must move on from that.

Some 95% of over 70s will now have a full medical card. That is the most important message that will come out of this debate tonight. We listened to what the people, our councillors and our backbenchers said as well as to what anybody else who cared to share their opinions with us had to say. We have made a decision and we have the humility to accept that a mistake was made and that the deliberative process fell short of what it should have been. People know that is the position and we have tried to communicate that to as many people as possible.

I wish to touch on a few of the issues that have arisen in the past few days, in particular the issue of universality. This matter came up in the Seanad today in a debate on child care provision. Senator Bacik stated that primary care is a universal social service, which is a fair point. We must consider what universality really means and whether it will apply to all social services and provisions within the economy or whether we can from time to time, in certain circumstances and in the straitened circumstances we have now, look at the question of universality in certain areas and pull back from that.

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