Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

For those in receipt of a medical card, one of their most significant fears is that they will lose it, particularly if they are on the cusp of the qualification threshold. Possession of a medical card may also act as a disincentive in taking up employment. When a full medical card is withdrawn from an individual, might some consideration be given to providing him or her with a GP-only card for a minimum period of, say, six or 12 months? This would remove some of the fear associated with losing one's medical card and ease the transition to a situation where one must cope without it.

Will the Tánaiste consider pricing the provision of prescription plus doctor only medical cards? I do not know what such a provision would cost. We have a costing for the provision of doctor only medical cards but need to go a step further to make them more acceptable. We all would prefer the provision of a full medical card but in the absence of this it would be useful to have such a costing. Perhaps we could examine introducing such a card at a later date.

If the income threshold in the guidelines for the issuing of a medical card was strictly adhered to, I am sure there would be 50,000 to 70,000 fewer medical card holders. If it were not for the common sense of community welfare officers in ignoring the income threshold guidelines, a small number would have a medical card. Community welfare officers are frustrated by the way they have to dispense medical cards.

I received a telephone call yesterday from a young woman who had tried to access the doctor on-call service and had been told to come but to make sure she had a medical card or a sum of €50. If this is the direction in which we are moving, we are bringing medicine to a new low. We talked at one time about the system in America, that one should not get sick unless one had money. If we keep moving in this direction we could shortly send people to America to give them lessons. That is not the response I would have expected from the on-call doctor service.

There is the giving of grants to make houses disability or wheelchair friendly. Has the Tánaiste had talks with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to consider changing the planning laws to ensure planning permission will only be granted for houses that will be disability or wheelchair friendly? This might not solve all our problems but down the line when we are old, we might catch up in this regard. Eventually every house in the country should be wheelchair friendly.

See this speech in context