Seanad debates

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Adjournment Matters

Medical Card Eligibility

7:00 pm

Photo of Brian Ó DomhnaillBrian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is the normal Civil Service response. This is discrimination against 18 to 25 year olds and deeply unfair. I ask the Minister of State to examine the issue again. I do not expect him to provide a solution tonight, but I had expected a response which suggested 18 to 25 year olds were playing a meaningful role in society and that their eligibility for a medical card should not be scuppered just because another Department had cut their weekly social welfare income. This is essentially one Department working against another. Someone needs to sit down and work this out. Can a meeting be scheduled between the Department of Social Protection and the Department of Health to come to some arrangement to assist the people concerned? The fact that they are earning too little should not make them ineligible for a medical card. It makes absolutely no sense. If such individuals get sick, how will they be able to afford to go to a doctor? They are being left high and dry. I am not making a political point because this is beyond politics. I ask the Minister of State to examine this issue again because it is simply unfair.

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