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

This is a very serious issue in that the Taoiseach has said 13,000 cards will be restored - the Minister said something similar in his press release, 15,000 - but the bottom line is that if one looks at the HSE performance report of January 2011, there were 80,000 discretionary medical cards. The reply we got at the end of April from the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, with whom the Taoiseach is very familiar, mentioned approximately 50,000 discretionary medical cards. That means 30,000 medical cards were taken from people in the interim, not 13,000 or 15,000. What about the other 15,000 people? Will they have their discretionary medical cards restored?

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