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

A total of 31,000 discretionary medical cards have been taken from very sick children and from people with life-limiting, life-threatening and terminal conditions over the past three years. I have raised this issue on various occasions in the past 18 months at Leaders’ Questions, and the Taoiseach has consistently denied any change in policy or any move to limit and get rid of discretionary medical cards. The Government’s position became farcical when the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy White, said on radio that there is no such entity as a discretionary medical card. That attempt to eliminate the truth and the facts would have done justice to any North Korean leader.

The health service plan set a target to reduce discretionary medical cards. Every Member of the House has been inundated with calls from worried parents and families who have lost medical cards. I have a list of ten people with very serious conditions that I can give to the Taoiseach. One is a 12 year old child, one of six in the world with a particular syndrome, which gives rise to appalling conditions, who is denied a medical card,. Another is a 65 year old woman with multiple myeloma, a terminal condition, who had the card for some years until it was removed. There are many other such cases. There was an incredible report in the Irish Independentabout the mother of Ben Hughes who was asked to prove that her child still had Down's syndrome. This is extraordinary.

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