Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join Senator Terry Brennan in welcoming the additional 400 jobs PayPal will provide in Dundalk. I pay tribute, yet again, to the European vice president of PayPal, a native of County Laois, Ms Louise Phelan, who has been instrumental in enlarging the workforce in the company. As Senator Paul Coghlan has pointed out, her brother was a former colleague of ours, the late Senator Kieran Phelan. Ms Phelan is going from strength to strength in providing employment in the country. The additional 400 jobs in Dundalk will prove very beneficial to whole north east of the country, including counties Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath and further afield. I very much welcome the news to which Senator Terry Brennan alluded.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, come to the House to clarify what he means by reversing the decision on discretionary medical cards. As Senator Marc MacSharry outlined this morning, 30,000 people have lost the so-called discretionary medical cards. The Minister said 15,300 would be restored, while in the Dáil the Taoiseach said 13,500 would be restored. Whoever is correct, more than 15,000 people will not have their discretionary medical cards restored. It is important that the Minister come to the House this afternoon to outline what he means by the reversal of the decision to take discretionary medical cards from the most vulnerable in society. As I said a number of weeks ago, it is time for backbenchers - in particular Fine Gael backbenchers since Labour Party backbenchers are obviously being ignored by their party - both Deputies and Senators, to stand up and outline what is happening on the ground. It did not happen when we were in government. We were not listened to and look what happened in the general election that followed. Backbenchers should stand up for the people they are here to represent and not let the Government get away with what it is doing.