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

Yesterday the Government accepted that it could no longer stand over cases of people with acute medical conditions and multiple disabilities losing their medical cards. It accepted that discretionary cards should be restored to 15,000 people in that category who lost them, until at least July 2015. Those people, however, will get no refund even though the Government has accepted that it wrongly took the cards from them and has inflicted considerable costs on them.

The Carers Association yesterday estimated that losing the cards would have cost many families up to €1,200 a month. Young Katie Connolly’s condition would cost her family €7,000 a year but she lost her medical card. The Government caused that family considerable distress. This money should be refunded. Will the Taoiseach put in place a mechanism to facilitate that?

I asked the Taoiseach yesterday about the other 15,000 who had lost their medical cards. What is to happen to them? They will not get them back. Over 30,000 people lost their medical cards, according to the Government’s statistics. Only 15,000 are getting them back. Some were paralysed with fear and shock and were not in any position to respond to the infamous letters sent out over the past two and a half years.

Yesterday’s decision also creates further injustices. Thousands of people who since 2011 would have applied for discretionary medical cards, who have acute conditions and disabilities were governed by the same policy framework that governed the removal of the 30,000 cards. They have been refused and will get no medical card, although the Government accepts that the policy framework was wrong and is giving cards back to 15,000 people who lost them as a result. Anybody who receives a new diagnosis in coming weeks or months will be governed by the policy framework the Taoiseach said was wrong, an admission which occasioned his decision to restore the card to 15,000 people. The Taoiseach has to accept this is a shambles and is inconsistent and incoherent.

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