Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Can I propose that No. 14, which seeks leave to introduce the Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Fund Bill 2014, be taken before No. 1? We all welcome the U-turn that the Government has made in terms of the discretion on medical cards. The Minister referred to unintended consequences. Having listened to one lady on the radio today, I find that expression disturbing. Were they the unintended consequences of all the councillors in Fine Gael and Labour who lost their seats? Was it the unintended consequence of the suffering that people have endured in the past 12 months? God knows, if any Minister had listened to anybody on any side of this House in the past 18 months, it would have been crystal clear on a daily basis. Senator Kelly from Roscommon, along with other colleagues on all sides of the House, gave daily examples of the individual cases of unintended consequences throughout the country and the suffering that was endured.

One of my colleagues will propose an amendment to the Order of Business later that we might have the Minister in the House today. Given that we have so much time to spare because the Dáil is not doing its business as efficiently as us, perhaps we could have a debate and get to the bottom of the situation. By the Government's own figures, 30,000 people have lost discretionary medical cards in the past 18 months. On the one hand, we have the Taioseach saying that 13,000 medical cards will be refunded or returned, while, on the other, the Minister, Deputy Reilly, has said that 15,300 people will have their cards returned. What is happening to the other 15,000 people? What is happening to the 7,000 people in their 70s and 80s who, having had the life scared out of them by a letter saying that they would have to be reviewed and asking them to send in information, did not bother because of their fear of the process and of not being able to go through it because of their ailments, because of their fear or because of their senior years? What about those 7,000 people? What happens if a child or elderly person is struck down with a serious illness? We now know by the Leader's own admission that the expert group will not report for almost a year on who is going to be eligible for discretionary cards based on illness. What happens to the person who is struck down by MS, lung cancer or motor neurone disease tomorrow, or by the countless other illnesses that people have? It will be of little consolation to the people who have lost their seats, with the governing parties having been rightly savaged in the election for this blunder, but do the people not deserve to be told what is going on? Who is getting what back? Are we to give the cards back and say: "By the way, here's your card back now, but you see that money, which can be anything up to €1,200 per month according to the Carers Association, that some of you had to dish out over the last three years? Tough on that. We are not paying you that back, but, because we got savaged in the election, here is the card back now." We want a full breakdown of what is happening to all 30,000 people. We want a full breakdown of what is happening to the sick child or sick elderly person of tomorrow. We also want to know precisely what is going to happen to those people who have been fleeced in the interest of a Government which was not listening to its own backbenchers never mind the Opposition.