Alan Kelly (Labour)

The calculations that have been done suggest approximately 14% will lose their medical cards. I would not like to accuse the Taoiseach of misleading the people, but in the next few weeks we will certainly find that out. We may have to come back into the House and say so.

The other aspect is that there is a fundamental change in that the Minister can use a ministerial order to change the thresholds. This is a principle. We are talking about the principle of universality and perhaps we should debate that at some stage, but that is a massive change in the principle. The Minister can decide next year that the thresholds will be changed again.

I do not believe this issue is solved. The discussions with the Irish Medical Organisation still must be undertaken. Until they are, we will not know how far they have proceeded and how much they have succeeded in dealing with this issue. This is just one issue; there is a plethora of others. Undoubtedly, within the next couple of weeks there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers and parents outside the gates of Leinster Houses protesting at the scandalous way schools, particularly secondary schools, have been treated in this budget in terms of class sizes, the changes in funding for resource teaching and the transport costs being imposed on parents throughout the country. It is ridiculous. I guarantee that in the next couple of weeks there will be massive debate on this issue and that it will be the subject of serious debate on the floor of this House.

Another sector that has been very badly treated, although this point might not yet have been raised, is the group of children between the ages of 16 and 18 who have disabilities. The threshold for the disability allowance, which amounts to approximately €204, has been moved from 16 to 18 years while the domiciliary care allowance has increased to €299 and been moved from 18 down to 16 year olds. However, in reality, families with children or young adults in this situation are losing up to €7,000 per year. That is huge. It must be highlighted and reversed. These people are using this money to bypass the long waiting lists for services such as speech and language therapy and occupational therapy.