Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)

This amendment seeks to oblige the Minister to prepare a report on access for survivors to the card provided for under the Health (Amendment) Act 1996, known as the HAA card. This issue was raised throughout the Committee Stage debate and is one of the key requests that have been consistently made by survivors. Even in the week since that debate, people have contacted our office outlining the shortcomings of the provision in the Bill for a medical card to meet the health needs of survivors. In the absence of adequate support from the State, it falls to the families of survivors, if they have families, to provide care. In many cases, survivors have to seek private medical interventions, where they or their family can afford to do so, to address health issues that are deeply rooted in their abusive experiences within institutions.

The State has a responsibility to survivors. The medical card provided for in the Bill has been clearly described as inadequate by survivors and their families. It should not be acceptable that people who were treated grossly in their earlier life are impoverished and continue to suffer in their later life because of the cost of meeting their healthcare needs. In many cases, the origins of their health issues are very much known.

Every time we raise the issue of access to the HAA card, we are told it was done for one scheme and is not standard practice for other schemes. There is a reason access to the card is continually referenced. We have highlighted some of the very poor choices that were made in regard to redress across multiple different schemes.One of the moments when a good choice was made was the decision for some to get access to that enhanced medical card. I do not know why we would not extend that. We know that was welcomed and was seen a recognition of the reality of people's physical situations, their mental situations and the challenges they were facing in their lives. Why not extend it? Why not look to bringing the HAA card to wider grouping given, I would say, the comparatively low cost but the very significant difference to the lives of many people affected and, indeed, the signal it would send when something that survivors themselves have called for was granted?