Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. The Bill was published last Friday week and Committee and Remaining Stages are to be taken today. The legislation will enable the Minister for Health to change the eligibility criteria for medical cards without ever having to return to the House again. It provides the Minister with extraordinary powers to determine who will be eligible for a medical card into the future. In addition, the Bill will remove approximately 20,000 medical cards from the system. Some 20,000 people, mainly senior citizens aged over 70 years, will lose their medical cards as a result of the Bill. The Bill is going through the Oireachtas at the speed of light and any scrutiny is hardly reported. There is a need for more reflection on the Bill, in particular on foot of the serious ramifications of the way sensitive, private, personal data is handled and exchanged among the HSE, the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners. It smacks of Big Brother and will cause concern to many citizens.

Rather than guillotine the Bill today, the debate should be open-ended and more time should be made available for reflection and consideration of its provisions. Above all, eligibility criteria should be determined by the House into to the future.

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