John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome members of Our Children's Health to the Visitors Gallery. They are very welcome, but to me it defies logic that any parent should have to go out and mobilise and organise a campaign group or sit in a public gallery at 10.10 p.m. on a Tuesday evening in the hope that their national legislators will do the right thing. Members of this group represent so many families right across the State looking in here this evening, but there is no legitimate reason for any Deputy in this Chamber to vote against giving a child who is sick a full medical card.

I have heard a number of announcements on this but there has been no action to implement it. In the most recent announcement, coming last week on foot of Sinn Féin tabling this motion, the Minister, Deputy Harris, said it would be implemented next year. However, next year is simply not good enough for many families, including children. These sick children need medical cards now, not next year. There are no excuses whatsoever. Sinn Féin has brought forward legislation which is in place, prepared and ready to go. Its implementation is all that is needed now. Unfortunately, the Minister, Deputy Harris, failed to give us a date when that legislation could be in place.

I do not agree with the Labour Party too often, but I agree with Deputy Alan Kelly that there is no reason that legislation cannot be put through now. I ask the Ministers of State present to provide us with a date when this legislation can be put through. The Government can rush through legislation when it suits it, be it the financial emergency legislation, property tax, water charges or a law to tackle head-shops. It has been done. If providing sick children with a medical card was a priority it could be done, too.

This is about political priorities and choices. The cost of doing this is a mere €9 million, which pales in comparison to the €14 million spent on ministerial transport costs from 2011 to 2014, or the €700 million spent on Irish Water. It comes down to political choices. Seriously ill children should never be left waiting for medical cards. Parents have to fight the system to get a medical card for their sick children, to which they are rightly entitled. This puts unnecessary pressures on parents. Those with disabilities have suffered hugely under the Government's austerity agenda - scrapping the mobility allowance, halving housing adaptation grants, cutting disability allowance and increasing prescription charges. The list goes on and on.

Not only is there a fight for medical cards in the first place but there is also a fight to get a medical card back when it has been taken from a child. In 2014, the Coyle family from my own constituency of Wicklow, had to go on national television to state their case before any notice was taken of their actual situation. Their child, Alexander, was the first person in Ireland to be diagnosed with Mowat Wilson syndrome, a profound intellectual and physical disability which brings life-threatening problems and seizures. Expenses include syringes and medication, nappies and other equipment, the cost of which exceeds €1,100 per month. Yet his medical card was taken away from him. At the time, Alexander's mother told how she had been forced to sterilise and re-use syringes which were meant for one use only.

This is not news to the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, who has left the Chamber. He comes from the same constituency as Alexander. Yet, the Minister has no problem in telling us that we will have to wait for the implementation of this legislation. The Coyle family's position is replicated for so many families across the State who find themselves in similar situations. This Government is so far removed from the realities faced by so many families and the fact that we have to push for something such as this, proves it. Parents should not have to go on television to get a medical card for their sick child, nor should they have to battle with the system to get one when it is so desperately needed.

If we are all in agreement that sick children are entitled to a medical card, then we should see emergency legislation go through the Oireachtas now. It has been done before and it can be done again. It is a political choice.

This motion provides an opportunity for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to give something back to the cohort of people they have taken so much from. I hope this opportunity will not be not wasted.

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