Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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644. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated cost of providing a full medical card including general practitioner, medical and surgical service, drugs, medicines and medical and surgical appliances for persons in receipt of a carer's allowance or carer's benefit. [30751/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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In December 2017, the Government  announced that additional funding would be provided to enable all carers in receipt of Carer's Allowance to qualify for a GP visit card. Following detailed financial analysis the Minister decided to extend this Scheme to all persons in receipt of Carer's Benefit. The legislation to provide this service, the Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2018 has been passed by the Seanad on 05 June 2018.

The provision of medical cards to this particular cohort is not intended under this Bill.

A detailed costing of the actual additional cost of providing a medical card to persons in receipt of either Carer's Allowance or Carer's Benefit, whom do not already hold a medical card, is not available as it would require an examination of the HSE and Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection datasets.

However, the estimated total cost of providing a medical card to all recipients of Carer's Benefit and Carer's Allowance could be in the region of €80 million. This figure is based on the figures current in December 2017 for the number of recipients of Carer's Benefit and Carer's Allowance and the 2018 average cost of a medical card. It should be noted that a significant majority of persons in receipt of Carer's Allowance will already hold a Medical Card.