Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

In the current circumstances, the answer to the last question is "No". The reality of the economic situation in which we find ourselves is that an additional 200,000 people have recently acquired medical cards. If memory serves me correctly, as I do not have the data in my brief, 1.48 million people are covered by full medical cards and 98,000 have doctor-only cards. These figures constitute a large portion of the population. The cost of providing services to our medical card community is substantially higher than it is, for example, across the Border. This influences the amount of cover we can provide in any one year. To be realistic, in the current financial circumstances, I do not anticipate changing the threshold.

The resource allocation group, which will report later this year, is examining all of the issues in respect of how to allocate health resources to get better outcomes for patients. Where Travellers are concerned, we have provided a great deal of additional money. We have also provided an extra €33 million for health projects for the homeless community. A priority of mine is that we continue with investments in these areas, where the most marginalised have bad health outcomes.

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