Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his kind comments. I recently dealt with a 69-year-old gentleman who spent five months in hospital and then came home to County Kildare. The first letter he got from this Government was not congratulations on beating Covid or the disease he had, it was instead a renewal letter for his medical card. His first comment to me was, "Do they want to put me back in there again?", such was the distress the letter caused him. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of that but it needs to be brought back to the Minister. We need to suspend renewals again while we are in the pandemic. We are being told the pandemic is not over. The HSE section dealing with medical cards needs to realise that.

Terminally-ill people are looking for an extension of 12 months only. They do not want to have to fill in medical card applications again or go back to doctors to get them to do likewise. That is all they are asking for and I am told it will not cost the State much. I ask the Minister of State to bring that back to the Minister.