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

The Taoiseach did not answer the questions I asked. For example, I asked if the Government would reverse the decision in the budget to take 35,000 medical cards from older people and he studiously ignored and avoided answering that question. I think the Taoiseach must be the only person in the country who believes there has not been a consistent attempt and policy to withdraw discretionary medical cards from people. The Taoiseach should read up on the case of Ms Lydia Cleary and her daughter, Eirin. She made all of those points; it was not an issue of communications. It is not about hard cases. The Taoiseach should stop all of that nonsense. Thousands of cards have been taken from people throughout the country, as every Deputy in this House has acknowledged.

Eventually, the Taoiseach acknowledged it because his own Deputies got to him at their party's Ard-Fheis.

We all know what is happening and we have all instanced individual cases. Let us consider Katie Connolly's case this morning in theIrish Examiner. She is a young Down's syndrome child with juvenile arthritis. Her card is up on 13 November. It is policy. It should not have had to wait until yesterday when the Taoiseach intervened in this case. We have been saying this for months. It should have been when the service plan was approved last year, in 2013. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, approved the plan in terms of a deliberate decision. It was a message to the HSE to find the savings in the General Medical Services, GMS, scheme. The Minister of State, Deputy White, confirmed it in May in the House before a committee. Let us consider the document that the HSE produced before the Oireachtas committee. It referred to the random reviews undertaken as part of the full suite of reviews to assist in determining that a medical card or general practitioner visit card meet the eligibility criteria. By God, the HSE has stuck by the new eligibility criteria.

Did anyone see the HSE official on "Prime Time" last Thursday night? Did the Taoiseach watch it? Christians among us would have been intrigued because on the third occasion he suddenly relented and it became evident that there was a change of policy. The interviewer identified one, two and then three policy changes in terms of the income guidelines in respect of medical card guidelines.

The Taoiseach should stop telling untruths to the public in respect of discretionary medical cards and stop all of this clever language to the effect that those who are entitled will get one.

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