Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have had emotional language in the Chamber dealing with the Department of Health. I wish to raise another urgent and scandalous issue. On October 21, Emily O'Reilly, the Ombudsman, decided to exercise her right to make a special report to the Dáil and the Seanad because of an unsatisfactory response from the Department of Health and the Minister. It deserves our urgent consideration because citizens over the age of 66 years have been denied and continue to be denied access to the mobility allowance scheme, even though this is illegal. It is not fair or just to senior citizens. As the Ombudsman stated in her report, is it because these citizens are too old to be equal?

The ramifications of this case go beyond justice for the senior citizens who are being illegally denied a service they are entitled to access.

The first serious implication is that the rule of law need no longer apply based on an administrative decision by the Department or Minister, for in this case the Department and the Minister know their actions are illegal, but have refused to accept the Ombudsman's recommendations and give older people their entitlement on the grounds that it would create liabilities that the State could not afford. The disregard for the rule of law involved in this approach is breathtaking and scandalous. It may well be done on the assumption that the older citizens involved do not have the resources or aggressiveness to challenge the illegality in the courts.

The second most serious implication is the contempt shown for the Office of the Ombudsman and the demeaning of her role by the failure of the Department of Health to abide by the commitments made to her to bring the operation of the scheme into compliance by the end of October. I raise this matter in light of the emergency supplementary budget that will address the ¤400 million deficit in the budget of the Department of Health. Will the money raised in the supplementary budget go to pay the mobility allowance to the relevant people over 66 years? The treatment of this group of citizens is absolutely savage. I want an answer. Will this supplementary budget go towards the scheme and provide for what they are legally entitled to?