Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the party next to me for tabling the motion which gives me an opportunity to speak on the issue. At the outset of his speech the Minister of State said:

It is not the first time it falls to me to put on the record of the House that with regard to medical cards allocated on the basis of discretion, there is no policy to abolish such cards; there is no deliberate "targeting" in order to reduce the number of these cards; there is no targeting of any patient group holding these cards; and nor would this even be possible ... I accept that some individuals have lost eligibility ... but cards are not being arbitrarily withdrawn or refused. There has been no change in the rules governing the awarding of medical cards where discretion is involved.

We immediately have a difficulty with that. Even in the HSE service plans up until last year there was in the accounting exercise a targeting of discretionary medical cards. It was identified and highlighted in the HSE service plans that there would be a reduction in the number of medical cards. That is an obvious targeting of discretionary medical cards. For the Minister of State to suggest at the outset of his speech that there was no such policy does not cut ice given that it is stated in the HSE service plans up to last year. This year the Government decided not to include the word "discretionary" in the HSE service plan because it made a deliberate attempt to erase the word "discretion" from official policy.

Even in the responses to some of the parliamentary questions I and other Deputies tabled, the Minister of State informed us that there was no such thing as discretion. There were more than 80,000 entities in terms of-----

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