Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill in the short time available. I have two questions for the Minister, one simple and one quite fundamental. The Minister hopes the ending of the automatic entitlement to the medical card will yield a further €20 million. I believe it will not save money. Given that the new system will lead to further HSE bureaucracy and labyrinthine form filling, how much money will be spent paying civil servants to implement this new, unsophisticated system which is ill thought out and a panic reaction to plummeting ratings in the opinion polls? That is the first, simple question which must be answered.

My second question is fundamental and relates to issues surrounding health insurance. Insurers will not insure illnesses that have arisen in the past ten years for new policy holders over the age of 60. Let us take the example of a 71 year old woman who let her long-standing VHI or Quinn Direct-Bupa policy lapse 12 months ago as a result of qualifying automatically for a medical card. She cannot get medical insurance for conditions or illnesses that have arisen in the last ten years, nor can she re-establish her old health insurance policy because a VHI policy lapses within 13 weeks. She will also face massive medical costs that she might be unable to meet. What does the Government propose to do in this case? Has the Minister, Deputy Harney, thought about this problem? Will she ask the medical insurance companies to re-establish lapsed policies on condition the policy holders pay for the lapsed time? That would be unfair. She can only resolve this issue by financing the lapsed time payments from the public coffers, which ultimately would cost more than the intended savings of €20 million.

This scheme is ill thought out, unworkable and unsophisticated. We must examine how we can engage more with people over 70 years of age. No lessons appear to have been learned from the demonstrations in Dublin. They were not about a single issue but a plethora of issues. If one were to describe exactly what was happening it was about a category of people who feel disregarded, worthless, without a role in society and taken for granted. That group of people has more to give.

We should start by accepting the principle of universality with regard to health. It worked for people because they undertook, on their own initiative, to undergo regular check-ups. That will no longer happen with the new threshold. That is a problem.

We must also confront the challenge of stereotyping people whom we have put into a dependent category. They are not a dependent group on society and should not be perceived as such. These people are active and have a role to play in society. Some of them might wish to continue working full-time or part-time. Some might wish to get involved in the voluntary sector. I note the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews. If we are to confront the challenges for youth, engage with young people and get them more involved in society, we should look to our senior citizens. Ask them for their help because there will not be enough money to pay for youth and community workers.

The principle of universality must be accepted. This Bill is the wrong way to deal with the problem.

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