Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I know Deputy Martin understands this because when he was Minister for Health and Children and the chief medical officer of the Department at the time suggested that free GP care should be extended to every child in the country, he supported it but then ran away and did nothing about it, just as he did with most other issues he faced.

In respect of discretionary medical cards, it is important to understand that the number of people with access to free GP care is the highest ever in the State. Some 43% of our population now have that access. There are 1.866 million full medical cards and 124,900 GP-visit cards, giving a total of 1,991,000. When people have a GP-visit card, it means they have free access to their doctor, which is the start of the analysis to determine what little problem they might have. On becoming Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly instructed the HSE to appoint a clinical panel to assist in the process of vetting applications for discretionary medical cards. That ensures the specific circumstances of a person with a particular diagnosis can be determined case by case. I want to say this to Deputy Martin, politician to politician, man to man, citizen to citizen: I saw some of the cases mentioned in the media and these were cases that the system should have been able to deal with-----

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