Phil Prendergast (Labour)

This Bill is the document that lets loose the Government's plan for making pensioners pay for its economic mismanagement. It is a cynical measure because it is deliberately vague, attempts to undo a political blunder, and is a punishment for good sense and prudence.

For years, working people have been warned about the pensions time-bomb. They have been advised by successive Governments not to rely on the State pension come retirement. This Bill, however, is a pensions incendiary device for those on modest incomes who followed the Government's advice and contributed to an occupational or private pension. Now their foresight and sacrifice is about to blow up in their faces. They are the ones most harshly treated by this measure. Because of this Bill, some of them may have been better off not providing for their retirement because it pushes them above the income threshold and they will lose their medical card. The prudent are being punished by the imprudent.

The Bill extends the card to those earning above the €36,000 threshold who are experiencing hardship owing to medical costs, but how much outlay is enough to be considered a cause of hardship? The Bill does not say. This is just one example of its deliberate vagueness. In addition, why does it only refer to hardship due to medical costs? Someone on €36,000 could have other reasons for experiencing hardship. For instance, what about people who dipped into their savings or acted as guarantor on loans so their children could buy their own home in the Government-inflated housing market over the past ten years? Such people are coming to my constituency clinics at the moment. They may now have liabilities they must meet without the security of a medical card.

This Bill refers to hardship due to medical costs, but it should be amended to say hardship due to Government cutbacks. It is all the more shameful that this and other cutbacks in the health service are being implemented while tax breaks continue to be offered to multi-millionaire companies to build private hospitals. This Bill is, truly, yet another example of the Americanisation of our health service.

No one can be sure this attack on the health and peace of mind 20,000 pensioners will save the health service €16 million. There has been no explanation how this figure was arrived at, but we know the figure of €16 million was announced before the decision to defer the implementation by two months. We also know that Age Action Ireland expects an increase in the number of pensioners taking up beds in hospitals and nursing homes because of the loss of their medical cards. This will increase health service costs rather than decrease them.

There is provision for the income threshold to be disregarded where medical costs cause hardship. Therefore, the €16 million saving, which appears to have fallen to €13.5 million, looks like becoming a false economy. The last time I spoke about this matter in the Chamber, a Senator on the Government side said opponents of the measure were engaged in opposition for opposition's sake and that we were not recognising the financial reality. I ask you.

The Labour Party opposes this Bill because it removes the principle of universal health care for the over 70s. Free health care for people of that age is as fundamental as free education for children. The tens of thousands of pensioners who turned up outside Leinster House were not engaged in opposition for opposition's sake either. They were not here for the crack — anything but. I have never heard anything so preposterous in my entire life.