Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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221. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of granting an automatic medical card to all those in receipt of domiciliary care allowance; the annual cost of the provision of this to new applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12303/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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At current card cost levels the €10m provided in Budget 2017 for the provision of medical card to those in receipt of Domiciliary Care Allowance will meet just over 6 months worth of reimbursement. As the HSE's Primary Care Reimbursement Service reimburse one month in arrears, this funding equates to 7 months worth of services in 2017.

This funding assumes the following:-

- the number of allowance holders provided is not understated;

- there is an immediate uptake; and

- the new cards usage is similar to those currently in the system.

Any change in one of those assumptions may impact on the funding level.