Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Those figures are not brilliant. The Minister can present it any way he likes but those are not good figures. He mentioned medical professionals. The problem is not specific to Balbriggan but the most recent case that was brought to me is in Balbriggan where doctors are now refusing to fill out these forms and not just for people on the medical card, although it happens a lot with people on the medical card. I always encourage my constituents to appeal where a decision goes against them if I feel they have grounds for that. Increasingly, I am advising people to appeal but they have to go back to their doctors now and they are not getting the forms filled out. The doctors are just point blank refusing them. The former Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, was in the newspapers sometime back regarding all the money he gets, and rightly so, for the medical card patients he has but some of these practices are getting a lot of money from the State and are then refusing to handle requirements for applications for payments from the State. It is a bit much. I know that is somewhat tangential but it is a very serious issue.

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