Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We discussed the medical card issue in the House a little over two weeks ago and the Minister was present for that debate. On that occasion I gave him the details of a constituent of mine from Caherguillamore in Bruff, County Limerick, and I regret to say that I have not heard from him in that respect in the intervening two weeks. I did not even get an acknowledgment from him that he would look into the case. That lady is suffering from cancer. She is very sick. She is going through three parallel treatments at the moment to try to overcome the challenges that cancer has presented to her. I spoke to her as late as last Saturday in her hospital bed. She was quite sick and she still has not had a determination or an outcome regarding her medical card. That should not happen. I regret that I have to raise her case again tonight on the floor of Dáil Éireann. As I said to the Minister two weeks ago, it is not good enough that any particular case should have to be raised in isolation in this House. I feel strongly about this case. The system is letting down this person. The Department of Health is letting her down. She is being let down by the people who should be looking after her and caring for her. While she is battling cancer, the biggest challenge that life has presented to her to date, she has the worry of whether she will receive her due entitlement to a medical card. I ask the Minister again to make this a matter of priority through his good offices.

We spoke about the ongoing medical card issue a number of weeks ago. There has been a de facto change in policy. I listened to some speakers on the Government side who talked about communications, scaremongering and misinformation. The facts are out there and we are bringing them into the Chamber. Nobody is making this stuff up. We need a dose of realism and a dose of honesty regarding the medical card issue. There is no point in saying to the people that there is a communications problem and that the Government is fixing it. When I hear that coming from Government, fixing a communications problem means that it is going to spin some other version of events. The fact of the matter is that the Government has determined an amount of savings that it wants to accrue from the medical card budget and it is working back from that. It is making the criteria fit as it works backwards from the bottom line savings figure that it is trying to reach. The Government has not decided what the new criteria will be but working forward from that it is a case of however many fall out of the system fall out of it. It is working backwards from the figure to try to arrive at a starting point, but that is not a good way to do it.

The people deserve a little bit of honesty. I compliment RTE's "Prime Time" on sticking with this public debate. Why do we have to see middle ranking HSE officials being torn apart in the RTE studios?

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