Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the approval of a GP card for our carers. It should be a full medical card on account of the great work they do. Many are family members who give up their jobs and their time to care for their parents or other relatives who would have no one else to care for them and they get little respite or time for themselves.

I agree with Deputy Collins. The home help service is 30 minutes and when family members in Kerry ask for a second home help they cannot get one. It takes two trained people to operate a hoist and some patients are very fat at that stage so it is a total no-no. Many families pay for home help out of their own pockets. There is no home help on Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays, apart from in very rare cases. Sick and elderly people do not get better for the weekend or a bank holiday. They need the same attention and care for seven days as they get for five days.

When carers apply for funding to be a carer they have to wait for 12, 14 or 18 weeks. Live horse and you will get grass, and grass is very scarce at the present time. The wait is too long. Another thing that is happening is the removal of medical cards from elderly people. I do not know who authorised this but they are looking for all sorts of information from people as old as 85 or 86 who have had medical cards since they got to pension age. Will the Minister explain what is happening? Why is there such a shortage of funding and why are we taking medical cards away from these people? Nobody can understand it. Reviews are being done into people's circumstances and I know one man aged 89 who had a medical card but does not have it now. He has gone through the hoops to get it back but he has to pay for his drugs and whatever he needs to take on a weekly basis. It is very unfair on old people who have served the country well and brought it to where it is now.

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