Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Severely sick and disabled children in this country have been grossly neglected for many years. Parents and families of these children have put in a lot of time and energy fighting to ensure that their young sick child has the right to a medical card. It is totally unacceptable and plain wrong to put any parent or family through such an ordeal when all they want to do is simply care for their child, not fight a system that refuses to recognise their plight and distress.

I welcome the parents who are here this evening and the representatives of the Our Children's Health campaign. Our Children's Health campaign was launched in May 2014 by families impacted by illness and disability who have first-hand experience of the struggle to secure and retain medical cards for their children. Its primary aim is,"to ensure children with serious medical need are no longer subjected to the crude, unfair, lengthy and frustrating means test in order to be considered for a medical card". The campaign has condemned the onerous application process, the exclusive focus on financial hardship and the failure to take account of medical need and the impact of a serious medical condition on a child and their family. Our Children's Health has argued:

We cannot continue to have a situation whereby children with the most serious medical need coming from ordinary families with modest incomes and huge outgoings remain ineligible. This is simply wrong and unjustifiable.

It is high time that medical cards were granted to every child with a serious illness or disability. Sinn Féin believes that the Department of Social Protection's domiciliary care allowance scheme provides an example of an assessment model on which a new medical card eligibility test could be based, in that it is independent of both financial means and diagnosis titles. Rather, eligibility is based on reaching a threshold of care needs.

I acknowledge and welcome the fact that last week the Minister, Deputy Harris, met with Our Children's Health and committed to the automatic provision of medical cards to very sick children. It has been suggested, however, that this may not happen until 2017. That is too far away. This should happen now, as a matter of urgency. Let us not let any parent of a severely disabled or sick child have to worry a day more about their child's health needs. I repeat, we must act now.

The extension of an automatic medical card to all children in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance is only a stepping stone, albeit a very important one. Inequality is rife throughout the health system. Some pay more than others for the same care. Families in one part of the country get access to necessary services denied to those in a different region. The less well off die younger and live less healthy lives. The diminishing minority who can afford private health insurance get to jump the queue. Sinn Féin is the only party with a costed, credible plan for health. We would increase investment in the health system and use €3.3 billion of the money available to end the two-tier public-private system and deliver a new universal public health system for Ireland. Such a comprehensive system will not be achieved overnight but a beginning must be made and that requires political will and a fundamental change in the direction of policy, away from the current two-tier and increasingly privatised system. Ireland is the only EU health system that does not provide universal access to primary care. Free GP care should be available to the entire population. We are committed to the realisation of a world-class system of universal health care, accessed on the basis of need, free at the point of delivery and funded by progressive taxation in the Irish State.

I have no doubt but that every single Deputy in this House has been approached by a concerned parent of one of these children with a severe illness or disability who is at their wits' end trying to secure a medical card. Today, we have an opportunity to bring to a halt the distressing and cruel process that these families must go through. Let us get that ball rolling and ensure that those young children will have the automatic entitlement to a medical card that they are so deservedly entitled to. Iarraim ar Theachtaí na Dála seo a dtacaíocht a thabhairt don rún seo.

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