Results 6,521-6,540 of 11,979 for speaker:Billy Kelleher
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: The reason they are leaving the country is because there is major pressure in terms of finance but also in the fact that the Minister is pursuing a policy of landing more people in the surgery without any support. There are fewer supports. That will impact on the ability of doctors and other primary care providers to look after people in the home environment setting. It is another attack...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: I remind the Minister that these issue are happening on his watch. It is not always about resourcing. This is about assessing the most efficient way of providing and resourcing care. Let us consider the position of home help hours, home care hours and home care packages. The Minister has advocated time and again that these are the best ways of treating people and providing support for...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: Equally, the Government's policies are opposite. One thing that is important for a person at home is the telephone, but the Government has taken away the telephone allowance. It has decided to cut home help hours and it has decided not to fund public health nurses. Moreover, the Government has decided not to bring forward supports in the primary care setting that would allow people to stay...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: That is an assault on the most vulnerable people in this country. The Minister cannot say that is not the case.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: If he does, he is wrong. No matter what way he goes through the arithmetic, his commitment is to universality. He committed to not reducing the entitlements of over 70s. That was his clear commitment.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: The Minister has broken that commitment time and again.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: In the meantime he expects us to applaud him and give him a clap on the back for introducing free GP care for under-fives.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: I would have no problem applauding him for doing that if he was not asking an elderly person to pay for it. That is what he is doing and he cannot camouflage it. Not only is he asking the elderly person to pay for it, he is asking a very sick person, a very sick child, who may be only three or four, or six or seven, to pay for it because that child will lose their discretionary medical...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: -----the Department is assessing people who had been given a discretionary medical card. It is assessing them under the income guidelines.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: They are being assessed under the income guidelines and a letter is written to the applicant informing them that they no longer qualify. Maybe the Minister has read none of those letters. I have read many of them and we have presented many individual cases to this House. It has been discussed continually on the national airwaves and the Minister knows it as well as I do. There were 85,000...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: -----and that is the case.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: What the Government thought coming into the House a couple of weeks ago-----
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: What the Government thought would be a great political stunt-----
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: -----has backfired on it because people know that the under-fives are being subsidised by the over 70s and by those who are the sickest.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: If the Minister decided to announce GP access for under-fives but did not reduce the budget for those on medical cards and on GP cards, and the eligibility criteria, he could legitimately argue that this is not being subsidised by the over 70s and the sickest. On every perusal of the estimate, the Minister cannot argue that because it is in black and white in his estimate that €113...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: If the Minister wants scaremongering he should look at the statements he made in 2008 and at the present Taoiseach’s statements on Molesworth Street.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: If the Minister wants scaremongering he should look at the recording of the statements that night.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: If I want to read out-----
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: Unfortunately-----
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Billy Kelleher: I am not scaremongering. Is the Minister accusing the Jack and Jill Children's Foundation of scaremongering? Is he accusing all the organisations who are on the ground, day in, day out, of scaremongering?