Mr. Patrick Burke:

I will deal with the GPs and I might go over some ground again. As the director general has said, there is one medical card. As we assess an individual we may have to exercise discretion. In some circumstances we will have to involve our medical officers to look at medical or other circumstances that are being brought to bear. As our medical officers across the country looked at material presented to us on foot of an application we found absolute differences with people making applications. In terms of what we did, in some cases applicants would get a letter from their GP. We sought to standardise that. We engaged over a period of a year talking to general practice and the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, about how we would have a standard form on which GP to GP could communication and set out tritely the type of information our medical officers would have to allow them assess eligibility. I have already said it was difficult to get that agreement from general practice because in some cases where an individual is looking for a medical card they may well be losing the private patient. We have pushed the point that we simply want general practitioners to help an individual work through their application.

We have sat down with GPs. We have put forward, as agreed by our medical panel, a standard form that could be communicated, not near administration but GP to GP, setting out the medical circumstances we want as an aid to the applicant in pursuing their application and having whatever discretion needed to be brought to bear. Those are the circumstances in that regard.

Regarding the schedule, we agree a schedule with an applicant. An applicant makes an application to us. We provide back a detail of what we believe to be their outgoings and their income, and we try to agree that schedule. I mentioned already that we have issued close to 1 million of those. In conversations with other TDs yesterday they made the point about making it more granular. We are making it more granular but it might be no harm if I read into the record the first or second paragraph of the letter that will go out to people today. This is where an individual has not been successful. It states:

Thank you for your recent application for a Medical Card/GP Visit Card.
I am enclosing a statement detailing your income and outgoings based on the information you have provided. This shows that your application is over the financial threshold set out ... This means that you and your dependants ... are not eligible for a Medical Card ... If you believe the statement is incorrect, please supply information to allow us to check this for you.
Your current Medical Card ... will continue until ...
We want to ensure that you continue to hold your Medical Card/GP Visit Card if you are eligible. To do this, we want to check with you if you have information that you did not send us that could make a difference.
Additional information you can provide
We wish to give you the opportunity to send additional relevant information ... The types of medical and or financial information we welcome include:
- A letter or report from the relevant GP or medical consultant.

I am skipping words, Chairman. I am simply trying to-----