Mr. Justin Moran:

It is something that has come up. I would not have described it as widespread, but when we are talking about the pension increase we have had members raise it. We are in the middle of our budget meetings with members but we have not had very many come to us and say that they have lost the medical card, but a number have said to us that they are very conscious that they are quite close to the limit, so they ask can we work on increasing the limit because it is getting closer to their income level.

To be fair, the Department has been better about the issuing of discretionary medical cards in the past six to 12 months. That is certainly our experience. There is an issue around people who are experiencing multiple morbidities, perhaps they have mental health problems and other difficulties and may not be able to engage in the process. Many people may not necessarily know that discretionary medical cards are available and if they do they must go through an application process and they can often need support and assistance to do so. We would suspect that there are people in the community who could get a discretionary medical card but cannot.

On the question of car insurance, this is an issue that the Deputy and I have discussed before, the real challenge is for older people in rural communities, because without a public transport system they are entirely dependent on their own ability to drive or on family members. We have dealt with members who have had very substantial increases, ranging from 30% to 50% increases in their car insurance premiums. It typically seems to happen when one goes from 64 to 65 years or from 69 to 70 years and one moves into a different category. These are issues we have raised with the finance committee when they were working on car insurance. In terms of how it might impact or affect the budget, one of the arguments we make is the reason we need the increases in incomes supports that Ms Naomi Feely has articulated is because of the increase in costs that older people are facing. That can be an issue of car insurance or private health insurance, as many older people see private health insurance as an absolute basic requirement because they are unwilling to trust the public system. When we argue for an increase in income supports, we are arguing for it not just because we believe it is necessary but because we believe it is necessary to meet rising costs.