Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the information provided. A couple of issues come to mind which I have had to deal with recently. The first relates to discretionary medical cards and the medical cards issued on the basis of life-threatening illness. I would have thought that, during the course of Covid, those who were about to lose their medical card or have it reviewed and who had obtained the card based on a diagnosis would have had a medical card reissued to them almost automatically because of the danger of causing stress and anxiety to them and their families at a critical time. I have had some difficulty in that area. We managed to resolve it but it took some time. Is it possible, at this stage, to devise a system that is more conscious of the needs of the families affected by such a serious illness, including spouses and siblings, and to ask those who have the means of doing so if they can in some way alleviate the impact on those people at a vulnerable time?