Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a brief comment. I have no wish to delay the meeting, but anyone who thinks that the PCRS system is now a good system or is giving a good return is simply not living in the real world. Significant problems remain with the medical card system. I do not intend to go through all of them today, but they include situations in which people have applied for discretionary cards on medical grounds.

In many cases those people are waiting for three to five months for a decision from the medical side of the system. That is absolutely unacceptable and I ask the Minister to address it. In addition, there are people who were told earlier this year that they would have their discretionary medical card returned who still have not received those cards, and there is still no system whereby public representatives can speak to somebody with authority in the system. That is a significant problem for anybody dealing with the system. One is speaking to people who are simply agents and who know nothing about the system apart from what is on the screen in front of them.