Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 213: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the discussions which have taken place within the Health Service Executive to ensure that chiropody services, at a reasonable cost and without a top-up charge, are available to medical card holders; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19321/05]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The provision of chiropody services is a matter for the local area of the Health Service Executive. This is a service which the HSE is not statutorily obliged to provide but a variety of arrangements are in place nationally under arrangements made by the former Eastern Regional Health Authority, ERHA, and other health boards.

Generally speaking, fees paid to private health care practitioners for the provision of services to public patients are reviewed periodically, and in that context I have requested my Department, in conjunction with the Health Service Executive, to look specifically at the current levels of fees paid to chiropodists participating in the chiropody scheme of the former ERHA. I wish to restate that I consider it inappropriate for chiropodists to charge a top-up fee to elderly public patients who have been deemed eligible for services under the scheme.

My Department wrote to the Health Service Executive on 26 January 2005 regarding the inappropriateness of these additional charges.