Mr. Peter Tyndall:

The reason the files are not available seems to be the process of centralisation of the consideration of discretionary medical cards. Clearly, it is not for me to answer on behalf of the HSE, but the point at which these files cease to be available seems to be the one at which the process of reviewing and awarding medical cards was centralised. What happened to the local files is something we have not been able to establish. All we know is that they are no longer available. That is something the Deputy may wish to put directly to the HSE, but it makes it next to impossible to determine whether comparable judgment is being used when the original decision is compared to the contemporary decision. It seems the files failed to be centralised at the point at which the consideration process was centralised. As an office, we cannot cast any light on where the files are and what happened to them. They are simply no longer available; that is when they went missing. We do not know why and how.