Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister. The issue I have tabled, and the last issue to be discussed in the Seanad before the summer recess, is important to communities throughout the island of Ireland. It affects about 300 HSE employees but it will affect hundreds of thousands of medical card holders across the State.

I wish to focus on the office in Ballybofey, County Donegal, where ten employees of the HSE provide a remarkable service to medical card holders. These individuals process applications for medical cards and deal with appeals submitted by members of the public in an efficient and caring manner. They possess a knowledge and understanding of the way of life in Donegal, the geography of the county and the difficulties people experience. Those to whom I refer operate under an extreme amount of pressure and I acknowledge that there is a backlog in respect of the service being provided. At present, 78,000 people in Donegal possess medical cards and a further 5,700 utilise the GP visit card. This means that some 84,000 people, over half the population of Donegal, have access to either card. As a result, a major burden has been placed on the staff who work at the office in Ballybofey.

I am concerned with regard to the immediate threat on the part of the Government and the HSE to remove the service and centralise it to what is primarily a call centre in Dublin. On foot of this action, the knowledge, understanding and compassion which those who work at the Ballybofey office possess will be lost. The HSE has already centralised the service relating to the medical card for those over 70 years of age and it must be acknowledged that this has not worked. The lack of staff in this regard means that there is not an ability to deal with the issues that have arisen in respect of those over 70 years of age, not to mention tackling matters relating to those between the ages of zero and 69. Some 350 calls go unanswered each week at the hub in Dublin because the staff there do not have the capability to cope with them. Such calls are made by those over 70 or people who are applying for medical cards. What will be the position when the 84,000 people in Donegal who possess cards of one type or another and their counterparts in other counties will be obliged to avail of the services at this call centre?

The centralisation of this service runs completely contrary to the Government's commitment in respect of decentralisation in the early part of this decade. The idea that the Government would remove services from a county such as Donegal at a time like this does not make sense. I have challenged the Government in respect of numerous issues. I had a discussion with someone recently as to whether there should be fewer Ministers and Ministers of State and he stated that we should get rid of them all because all we need is a "Minister for Cop On". An element of cop on is missing from some of the decisions being made by the Government at present and, in the current climate, it certainly does not make sense to remove services from Donegal.

Will the Minister of State outline the plan with regard to the centralisation of services? Will she confirm that such a centralisation is not going to take place? I am sure she is aware that IMPACT, the union which represents the ten workers in Donegal to whom I refer and the other 300 who are employed in various other offices throughout the State, is in the process of balloting its members on industrial action. The results of that ballot will be known at the end of the month and I have no doubt that IMPACT is ready to defend not only those it represents but also the services these people provide to medical card holders in Donegal and other counties.

It is important that this centralisation of services should not proceed as planned. It is also important that sense should prevail, that the ten jobs in Ballybofey should be protected, that the service should continue to be provided in Donegal and that the 84,000 people there who hold one type of card or another should continue to be able to access it and that the compassion and knowledge to which I referred earlier should be retained in the county. I ask the Minister of State to indicate that what is proposed is a fantasy of the Minister for Health and Children and that it will not proceed.