Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tacaím le moladh an Seanadóir Hayden maidir le díospóireacht faoi chúrsaí tithíochta. I support Senator Hayden's call for a debate on housing. Many of the Senator's points indicate an abject failure by her Government colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, to resolve these issues after three years in government.

I concur with Senator Comiskey in welcoming the Government's announcement today that it will review the medical card issue and restore the cards. It has been a long time coming. I spent most of yesterday afternoon with a family whose card expired in February and who have spent the last few months living from hand to mouth trying to cover medical bills. One of their children has a very serious health issue and they were in a very distressed state. Today's announcement should not be seen as putting the issue to bed. The Minister has not addressed the issue the Ombudsman brought to light when the review was announced, that the medical card reports done initially in each of the local areas are missing. The Minister should explain how it happened that when the medical card system was centralised, the files were not centralised. We need to find out where the files are.

I would also like the Leader to try to clarify the status of the HSE report on the procurement of maternity services in the West-North West Hospitals Group and whether a copy can be made available. The Minister should come here and explain his actions around the report.

Can we have the Minister here to discuss these issues? When the Minister for Children replied to me about a €10,000 cut to therapeutic language services in Ballinasloe, he said these cutbacks must be made, yet we are not tackling the disgraceful top-ups being made to people in the HSE. The Minister needs to come here and explain why essential services for children such as therapeutic language services in Ballinasloe, are being cut back although the money involved is relatively small and we can still pay top-ups to senior executives in the HSE. It is a disgraceful situation.