Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

Last week, a constituent of mine was refused treatment by her doctor unless she paid €50 on the basis that she did not have a current card. The card in question was reissued in April 2009 and is valid until 2011. When I contacted the relevant processing office which has been centralised to Finglas, County Dublin — it is the opposite to decentralisation — I had to spend 15 minutes waiting on the telephone before I got a reply. The information one is given in such circumstances might be inaccurate. The whole situation is quite unacceptable. I intend to resolve this case today, one way or the other. I am prepared to contact this woman's doctor and direct him or her to provide services to my constituent, who has a current medical card.

I ask the Minister for Health and Children to come to this House to explain why this nonsense has been allowed to develop in the Department. She is the ministerial head of the Department of Health and Children, and the Health Service Executive is responsible to her. I understand that all medical cards are to be processed in Dublin from now on. When they were dealt with in regional centres like Roscommon, everyone was able to get an immediate response. This is a retrograde step. We are going backwards, not forwards. I ask the Minister, Deputy Harney, to come to the House to explain the HSE's inadequate response to my constituents' concerns about the retention of medical cards.