Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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558. To ask the Minister for Health the cost to the Exchequer of a number of initiatives (details supplied), given the inability of the Health Service Executive, through the Minister for Health, to do so. [36081/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The HSE has advised that it has not undertaken a financial modelling exercise to estimate the cost for the provision of medical cards to all persons in the 0-69 age cohorts.

Neither the Department of Health nor the HSE records population data. I can, however, advise the Deputy that the latest CSO statistical release of August 2015 on population data shows an estimated population of 4.2 million in the 0-69 age cohorts.

The average cost of a medical card is reported in the HSE's Primary Care Reimbursement Service Statistical Analysis of Claims and Payments 2013as €973.26.