Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

While I genuinely welcome the Sinn Féin motion as an opportunity to outline the next steps, as I have already outlined them at a meeting with the members of the Our Children’s Health campaign, whom I would like to welcome to the Gallery, it is important to say that no Dáil motion was necessary to convince me or the Ministers of State, Deputies McGrath and Corcoran-Kennedy, to do this. I have been convinced by the people who are in the Gallery tonight. I have been convinced by the parents of children who are in receipt of domiciliary care allowance, the parents I have met in my own constituency, the parents of children with autism, among other conditions, whom I have worked with for many years.

In fact, on my way into what I think was my second Cabinet meeting, I spoke with Mark, who joins us here this evening, one of the Our Children’s Health campaigners, outside Government Buildings. On that occasion I took the opportunity to make very clear to Mark that this was a priority for Government and would be dealt with in the forthcoming budget. Many of us, as public representatives, have been struck by the practical challenges, as outlined by Deputy O'Reilly and others, that parents face in meeting the needs of their child with a severe disability.

As we discussed the issue that day, I came to further understand that, for many of these parents, meeting their child’s needs was the first time they had sought assistance from the State. The process of providing family financial information, expert or medical reports, and additional supporting information was and is a real burden on these parents when they were only seeking a medical card for their child. I am very clear that a core objective of the Government is to use the strengthening economy to make life better for the Irish people, and this is one such area.

The Government has committed to this significant improvement to the medical card system for a number of reasons. First, about one third of DCA children do not hold a medical card. Therefore, about 11,000 more children with a severe disability will qualify for a medical card under this measure. Second, in future, all 33,000 DCA children will automatically qualify for a medical card. Therefore, those children will not be subject to the medical card means test at any point in the future. Finally, the requirement to go through the medical card assessment process will be removed for about 30,000 families looking after a child with a severe disability. Those families will no longer need to complete a means test application form for their child and support that with expert reports and other additional information in order for their child’s case to be considered. Instead, mothers and fathers will be able focus on their primary objective of providing care and support to their child.

Last week, I held a meeting in the Department of Health with representatives of Our Children’s Health. At that meeting, I reaffirmed the Government’s commitment in its programme to providing medical cards to all children who qualify for the domiciliary care allowance. I confirmed that this commitment was a priority for me and the Government in the upcoming budget discussions and that my objective was to have legislation to enable it follow quickly after the required resources have been secured. I discussed at that meeting, and I believe there is cross-party agreement on this, the importance of doing this by legislation so that it makes it very difficult to be undone.

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