Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and his office for providing me with the opportunity to debate this issue and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, for coming to the Chamber to respond to the debate.

I very much welcome the recent announcement by the Department and the Minister that under new procedures, a medical card will remain valid, irrespective of the expiry date on the card, once the medical card holder is genuinely engaging with the HSE review process. Given the long delays in processing medical card applications, this should bring some relief to applicants, especially renewal applicants who have been turned down and feel they have strong grounds for appeal.

Under the new procedure, as Members may be aware, while an appeal is being processed the claimant should be able to present the existing card to a doctor or pharmacist who can check the validity of it on the website www.medicalcard.ie. If a person's card is under review, the person presents it to a pharmacist or GP who goes online and sees the card is under review, and the person remains in the system. However, therein lies the problem.

I will take the example of one of my constituents who had been engaged in the review process. This person had been granted a full medical card for more than a decade but on review was issued a GP visit card. When this decision was being appealed, it was discovered, during a visit to a pharmacist, that the person had been locked out of the system. The difficulty then arose of having to meet medication costs while locked out of the system.

The appeal process cannot be seen online. When the medical card was checked online, it should have shown the card was under review, but it showed a GP visit card had been granted. A technological system which is supposed to be more efficient is causing a problem. For the new procedure to work the medical card database must be up to date and must be cognisant of the appeals process. My office has tested this. I do not claim the examination was scientific but we entered a selection of valid GP visit and full medical cards and drug payment scheme cards, none of which was recognised by the system. There is a technical difficulty. In bringing the matter before the House I ask the Minister of State to examine it and explore how the difficulty can be surmounted.

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