Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said in my earlier response, the Minister of State with responsibility for disability affairs, Deputy Finian McGrath, will produce the details of all of this in the next week or so, in part to do with the Health Service Executive, HSE, service plan for 2018 and then the operational plans which happen in the new year.

When I mentioned examples of the incremental progress we are making as a Government, one I forgot to mention is that last year we extended as a right the full medical card to children who have severe disabilities and need care, regardless of their parents' income. As a result of that, an additional 10,000 children became entitled to a full medical card last year and 40,000 children received a medical card this year without any reviews. If anyone is being reasonable in their assessment, they will see that what we are trying to do, now that have fixed the economy, balanced the books and the economy is in a strong place, is to make incremental progress year on year to improve living standards, especially for those who need assistance the most such as carers and people with disabilities. I accept that we are catching up. That is absolutely right. We will catch up and we will make more progress every year for as long as this Government is in office. I have a different philosophy to Deputy Adams, who is a revolutionary socialist. He believes in destroying the system, removing everything, bringing it down to a certain level, and then creating some sort of Utopia.

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