Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

The Government faces an incredible task to have to try and find €3.8 billion in cuts in next month's budget. We wonder why there might be speculation, which I cannot confirm, about a €50 medical card charge on application. The answer might lie this morning in the fact that the EU will monitor us long after 2013 when we might get back into the markets. Such is the level of intrusive EU and IMF scrutiny to which we will be subject. Whenever I try to resolve a problem, I go back to first principles. I thank Fianna Fáil for subjecting us and generations of Irish people to such intensive EU scrutiny.