Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----that were not listened to until such time as the collapse. During that 18 months, unbelievable and unfair distress was caused not just to senior citizens, but to people generally. This concern and stress fell on deaf ears until people turned out on 23 May, but I am not convinced that they are even being heard now. People are still attending our offices because their cards have been withdrawn. There is still a great deal of distress. There is no mention of new legislation to alleviate the problem.

This is the background to the situation. When people hear the word "review", they think about their medical cards and telephone allowances being removed, their prescription charges trebling and no allowance being provided to older people on fixed incomes in respect of their property taxes or water charges.

That is the background and the reason we are raising this issue. For Fine Gael Deputies, in particular, who were Members of the last Dáil to come into the House and give out because we are raising it and talk about us scaremongering takes the biscuit, to be polite. From 2007 to 2011 Fine Gael traded on scaremongering. Every night was Hallowe'en. The Minister of State's new party Leader engaged in a fair bit of it herself in her day and Thursday at Question Time and during Leaders' Questions used to be scare Thursday. We will now see the colour of her money.

The review needs to focus on a number of things. The travel pass, particularly in rural areas, is important for social purposes but also medical purposes. It provides many people with the ability to attend a medical appointment in regional and Dublin hospitals where they have to attend at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. The notion of a time limit on usage of the pass is unfair and will restrict people's ability to use it for medical purposes.

As we are rolling out the new picture ID card, fraud can be controlled better. Surely, if the Department has a reduction of fraud as an ambition in rolling out the ID card, with which we all agree, we should roll it out to those who use the services most. This should feature in the plan for rolling out the card and if the free travel pass is in the Government's sights in terms of fraud control, those who have it should be the first to get the ID card. That would make sense and cut down on fraud. CIE and the companies that make the most money from the travel pass should be told to get their act together in terms of fraud control. They have a role in that respect; it is not only the Department's job. Any company that is using and making money out of the system cannot wash its hands of responsibility in tackling fraud and should be given the powers and resources it requires to do so.

We need to examine the rural transport scheme. The wonder Minister of State, Deputy Alan Kelly, has done a good deal of work around the scheme, but I am not convinced by it for many reasons. Unfortunately, it will be the winter before we see it being rolled out. He has been so busy in the past few weeks launching canal passes in every part of the country where there is a Labour Part member that we have not had a chance to see how effective the scheme will be.

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