Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the Minister's statement that the rules and policy on discretionary medical cards have not changed, because they have. Every Member of this House, on the Opposition side and the Government side, knows what is happening because they deal with it every day. People who had medical cards for years and whose circumstances have not changed have had their medical cards reviewed and withdrawn. People are being targeted daily. Those with chronic illnesses and other serious illnesses are either not being granted medical cards or are having them withdrawn.

I will refer briefly to two cases. Recently, a gentleman came to me whose medical card was withdrawn because he was 8 cent over the limit, even though he was ill. A 16 year old young man with cerebral palsy who is wheelchair-bound and has serious and frequent epileptic seizures had his medical card withdrawn. He had a medical card for years. Such cases are heard hourly in my office and in the office of every Oireachtas Member in this House and in the Seanad.

Currently, it takes a minimum of two to three weeks for documentation to be registered on the PCRS system. It takes months to process applications. Unless one has a medical certificate that says one has a terminal illness and one is applying on discretionary medical grounds, it can take months to have one’s application assessed. Constituents with diagnoses of cancer have been waiting two, three and four months for a decision. They are waiting in a queue to be looked at by a doctor. That is simply unacceptable but it is a fact. Everything I have said this evening is a fact. Everything I have heard from other speakers reflects what I hear and see daily in my office.

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