Mr. Conan McKenna:

It stated:

In the case of social Insurance payments, such as Invalidity Pension, means are not assessable. As such, this issue only arises in cases where a person is claiming a means-tested scheme. In the case of means-tested payments, claimants are assessed on any cash income, property other than the home, and investments... This means that a Disability Allowance claimant with €50,000 in savings (and no other means) can be assessed as having nil means and, as a result, receive the maximum rate of Disability Allowance.

I think the Department was trying to give some comfort there in cases of wards with depleted funds when coming out of wardship. It further stated that the then Department of Social Protection's view at the time was:

Many of the Department’s customers are vulnerable. From the Department of Social Protections perspective, there is no justification in treating a person who is a Ward of Court differently to others in relation to means assessment.

Regarding the HSE part of it, it states:

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is informed by the Department of Health and the HSE that the HSE can award medical card eligibility where undue hardship arises for a person in arranging health services. In relation to the medical card assessment process where persons have or receive significant income - e.g. pension or redundancy lump sums, compensation awards through court proceedings etc. such funds are not treated as income under the medical card assessment process but as savings, Savings up to €36,000 for an individual and €72,000 for a couple are disregarded and only interest earned on any savings above these thresholds are reckoned for medical card assessment purposes.

It is probably easier to give the material to the committee.