Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Bill provides that Irish, British and EU citizens living in Northern Ireland will retain full access to a European health insurance card. Fianna Fáil wants to see full access to the entire European Union and its schemes and programmes retained for Northern Ireland and, as such, will support the Bill. We also want these rights to be reciprocated. It is imperative that people born in the Republic retain full access to public services in the UK, including healthcare, on the same basis as currently pertains. That is of great importance for the approximately 430,000 people living in the UK who were born in the Republic, but it must also apply to those visiting Northern Ireland or elsewhere in Britain. Of course, the latter group is the target of the Bill and the European health insurance card.

Although Fianna Fáil supports the Bill, it would be remiss of me not to speak to the healthcare service in the Republic to which the Bill would provide access for residents of Northern Ireland. The European health insurance card caters for people on temporary visits. Its purpose is to enable people visiting a country who become ill to access healthcare services. The main service that would be accessed by people from Northern Ireland visiting the Republic would be emergency departments. What do such prospective patients see as they look south of the Border? They see 70 year olds, 80 year olds and 90 year olds waiting on chairs or trolleys for days. They see levels of overcrowding not experienced in Northern Ireland or Britain and that have never been seen before in the South. They see understaffing, with doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and other staff under extraordinary levels of pressure and experiencing fatigue and burnout.

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