Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Martin is absolutely right and perfectly in order to raise questions like that here. This is one of many issues that the Deputy can raise, as leader of his party. The Deputy, having been in the Department himself previously, is well aware of what the situation was and how it has evolved to the point now where everybody starts on the same basis. In other words, there has been no change in the criteria for medical card eligibility. There are more cards issued now than ever before and money has been included in this year's budget for further new cards. Deputy Martin raised the case of a young boy with a tumour whose medical card was taken away and frankly, I do not understand that either, so let us find out about it. Deputy Martin raised medical card cases here before, as did Deputy Adams and I brought them to the attention of the people who deal with medical cards. Some cards were approved, as was correct, while others were not, for reasons that were explained.

One change that was made before Christmas is that when a person's card is coming up for review, he or she will now receive three months' notice. In that context, I do not understand how, in the case mentioned by the Deputy, the person was informed by his or her pharmacist that his medical card was withdrawn. The system was centralised so that people would be contacted and would know in advance that card X was up for review in three months' time and so forth. I am happy to follow through on those two cases for Deputy Martin.

See this speech in context