Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is what is happening. It is highlighted in the Government's budgetary arithmetic. It has highlighted the fact it will target €113 million in medical card probity. That is a stealth word for reducing the number of discretionary medical cards. The reason discretionary medical cards are being targeted for a cost-saving exercise is that they are being used all the time because they are awarded to people based on their illnesses. They need these for many reasons. The Government has decided to take them from those who need them most and give them to those who may not need them at all. If a person contracts an illness or a disability, the State should support them through the discretionary medical card process, but the Government has opted to go the wrong way by going down the GP universality route prior to having additional funding in place. Additional funding is the critical issue.

I am not the only one saying this. The advocates of many people in society who are facing very difficult times and huge hardship in terms of illnesses, diseases and disability, both physical or intellectual, are also saying it. The Jack and Jill Foundation, the Irish Cancer Society, people who advocate for people who contract motor neurone disease, Down Syndrome Ireland and other organisations are saying there has been a change in how one is assessed and granted a medical card on a discretionary basis.

Reading through the Minister of State's speech, it is exceptionally disappointing that we are back to square one. There is no acceptance that it has become more difficult to be granted a medical card on a discretionary basis. Mr. Hennessy of the HSE said that some of the ways in which medical cards were handled were indefensible. If they were indefensible, why is the Government defending them? Is it not time to accept that this move towards culling and reducing the number of discretionary medical cards should be reversed and that the precedents set were set for good reasons? It is a shameful exercise that we are now quoting the 1970 Act in its entirety and that the Government is now tying the hands of those who would have been able to grant a medical card on a discretionary basis.

The Minister set up a clinical panel to assess people seeking a medical card on a discretionary basis. I do not know the guidelines under which it is operating but I know one thing for sure-----

See this speech in context