Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. As Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, I am aware, as the Minister indicated, that there is an issue with regard to how the HSE communicates with people in writing and how it determines eligibility.

It is a pity Deputy Finian McGrath has left. Anyone can shout, roar and play to the gallery. However, what I want to do is to put some figures on the record. Deputy Finian McGrath referred to how a society values its people. Let us use that as the measure in the first instance. Forty percent of citizens have access to medical cards and a further 2.7% have GP-only cards. In addition, the Government will spend between €13.2 billion and €13.5 billion on health this year. That is a measure of how we value our people. It also attests to the reform of the health system in which the Government is engaged. I welcome the statements from both the Minister, Deputy Reilly, and the Minister of State, Deputy White, that those with discretionary medical cards are not being targeted.

The motion before the House is the classic old-style Punch-and-Judy approach of Fianna Fáil. When the leader of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Martin, served as Minister for Health and Children there were overruns in the health budget, but not a word has been said about that by the members of his party. Where are Fianna Fáil's suggestions with regard to how we might make health care more accessible and available to the population? The motion contains is a litany of figures but no solution. Never before in the history of the State have so many people had medical cards or GP-only cards.

On foot of the motion before the House and discussions that have taken place at meetings of the Joint Committee on Health and Children, we must challenge the HSE to indicate the basis on which people can qualify for medical cards and how they might apply for them. At one of the meetings of the joint committee, I made the point to the Minister of State that people are petrified when they receive letters indicating that their cases are being reviewed. Very often there is nothing to worry about; these are merely reviews. As a result of what was said at the meeting to which I refer, the HSE changed the language used in the letters it sends people. I take this opportunity to compliment the staff of the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, for being prepared to be available to and engage with people. We must remove fear from the equation. I welcome the decision taken by the Minister and the Minister of State to establish the clinical review panel.

The State has a duty and a responsibility to provide people with access to health care, which it is doing. Those who are vulnerable need to continue to have access to health care. That is the test we must pass. If we fail in this regard, we will undermine the process of reform in which the Minister and the Minister of State have engaged by creating the hospital groups, restructuring the HSE, reconfiguring the health service, reducing the cost of pharmaceutical products, promoting the use of generic medicines and improving work practices in hospitals. All of these developments have occurred on foot of the Minister's reform agenda and the level of buy-in from health care staff.

The staff of the PCRS can only do so much. The management of the HSE must invest time and energy in communicating properly with medical card holders, with the Joint Committee on Health and Children and with Members of this House. The centralisation of the HSE medical card system was a welcome development. People might ask why that was the case. I am of the view that it exposed the nod-and-wink culture which obtained under Fianna Fáil whereby people whose incomes massively exceeded the thresholds were given medical cards to which they were not entitled.

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