Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is fine; I would appreciate if Mr. Flanagan could make it available. I have had a concern for a long time that a percentage of people have medical cards in their possession simply because they are used as a criterion for accessing other services such as school bus transport.

I have been concerned that the number of medical cards is inflated to some degree because of that requirement. I think that a medical card should specifically be for medical purposes. I will move on because I have made that point. Will the witnesses make those figures available, because we would be interested in developing that body of work?

I have spoken to John Wall about end-of-life care, as I am sure have many of my colleagues, on many occasions. I welcome that the process in that area has begun. We are talking about 24 months. How many of those end-of-life medical cards have been issued to date?