Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader for an urgent debate on medical card assessments and anomalies in the system. I will briefly mention three cases. Two of the cases concern farmers in receipt of farm assist who are being forced to get an assessment from the Revenue Commissioners because they are not in the tax net. The Revenue Commissioners has told me quite clearly that it does not want to know these people. The most it can do is issue a statement of affairs written on official Revenue Commissioners paper, which the HSE, at a top level, will not accept.

The Leader might say to me that this is an appropriate matter for a commencement debate, but I have raised it here before. In one other case I got Deputy Kelleher, who knew the family concerned, to table a question in the Dáil, but he received the same response. I was spurred on to raise this matter today following a call the other day from a man about his 93-year old uncle, who is a retired priest but is currently in hospital.This elderly man received a letter stating that if he did not reply within six or eight weeks, his medical card would be withdrawn. He did not respond in time because he was very ill in hospital and did not know the letter was at home, and now he has lost his card. This type of approach is appalling.

I have spoken to various Ministers about this, and after a number of inquiries I have established that the Revenue Commissioners is not at fault. In fact, I am told, Revenue has been inundated with telephone calls from elderly sick people inquiring about these issues. These are people who were never in Revenue's net and do not want to be. It is appalling that one branch of the State, the HSE, will not accept an assessment by another branch, the Revenue Commissioners. These assessments should not be taking place in the first instance. Many of these people have spent €300 or €400 going to an accountant to prove they owe nothing. In one instance, a farmer in his late 50s lost his card even though he was diagnosed by a consultant as having severe arthritis and advised to seek disability benefit. In another case, a person suffering from high blood pressure is no longer taking his medication because he cannot afford it.

I am asking that the Minister for Health come to the House to debate this issue. I have tried all other avenues to get it resolved. It is unacceptable that the elderly and most vulnerable in our society are being affected by this practice. Nobody at the top of the HSE dealing with medical cards can get a handle on it. Under the old system, the officer in the locality would know about the priest in his 90s being in hospital. Lives may be lost because people cannot afford their medication. I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that the Minister come here today to debate this issue and undertake to get a handle on it. I was blaming the Revenue Commissioners, but after several telephone calls it became clear that the problem is that the HSE does not accept what Revenue issues in these circumstances. The system is like a revolving door, with information going in one way and out the other. We must ensure people who are entitled to medical cards actually get them. It is appalling that a man in his 90s lost his medical card because he was in hospital for several weeks and unable to respond to the letter he received. When I complained on his behalf, the response was that he would be sent a new application for an over-70s medical card. That is not good enough.