Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I also object to the guillotine being applied to the so-called Health Bill today on Second Stage and on Final Stage, which is scheduled for 6.30 p.m. The withdrawal of the automatic entitlement to a medical card for the over 70s is clearly an attack on senior citizens. The Government has responsibility to explain how general practitioners were being paid for 10,000 patients who were no longer alive at a rate of €690 per individual on the general practitioners' lists. That is a list that should have been checked twice. That amounted to €6.9 million of public money squandered, almost the entire amount that the Minister claims this measure was designed to save. Better administration of the health services would have secured the saving required rather than putting senior citizens through this pain and anguish and leaving a significant section of them outside the loop of entitlement in the future. Shame on the Government and on the health service.

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