John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

That would have provided the savings. The policy in that regard was to ensure that by taking from those who did not need that cover, savings of €100 million would be spread around new services within the Department of Health and Children. It is worth noting that the overall reduction to the health Estimate was a figure of approximately €800 million. On the other hand, new services in the region of €700 million were provided for health in this budget.

Without trying to squeeze the last cent, somebody must look at the process and examine the considerable demands for new health services. Now that the cancer strategy is in place under Professor Keane, it is time to move on to provide expert cancer services for other types of cancers. Professor Keane made that point himself. That again requires new money and a figure of €15 million was put towards that. The commitment has been such that whatever funding was required to support the national cancer strategy it would be secured each year by an increase in the budget strategy for the Department of Health and Children. We tried to get an amount from the medical card scheme for those aged over 70 by reducing the numbers eligible. The savings were to be specifically diverted to progress new strategies.

It is fair to point out that there are many other areas in health for which there were considerable demands in this budget. We discussed the new children's hospital for which funding must be secured to provide that very much needed service. Naturally, all the public attention and that of non-Government parties in the House focused on the medical card issue. There are other issues on which people did not focus, for instance the need to fund a Vision for Change.

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