Top Issue 1-2024

12 May 2014

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Medical Card cuts – Dáil motion by Sinn Féin to challenge Health Minister

Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

‘Sinn Féin are calling on the Government to reverse the cuts to discretionary Medical Cards imposed in the HSE 2014 Service Plan’


A DÁIL MOTION has been tabled by Sinn Féin for debate this week that will challenge Health Minister James Reilly and the Fine Gael/Labour Government on the cuts to discretionary medical cards described at the weekend by a Health Service Executive as “indefensible”.

Even HSE National Director of Primary Care John Hennessy told the annual conference of the Irish College of General Practitioners in Galway on Saturday that the handling of some Medical Card cases is causing unnecessary levels of anxiety and frustration for certain families, particularly families dealing with serious disability.

Announcing the Sinn Féin motion to be taken in the party’s Private Members time this week, Sinn Féin Health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD said there has been a continuing dramatic fall in the number of people granted or retaining discretionary medical cards.

“The Minister for Health and the Government have failed to recognise the reality of this reduction and the hardship it is causing,” the Sinn Féin TD said.

“Last week there was a last-minute pre-election acknowledgement by the Minister for Health – prompted by a meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party – that a problem exists. The Health Minister stated that he has asked Fine Gael TDs to give him a list of ‘hard cases’ and he floated the vague notion of a ‘third tier’ of services. 

“We are calling on the Government to reverse the cuts to discretionary Medical Cards imposed in the HSE 2014 Service Plan. They should ensure that the HSE treats with due respect and compassion all applicants for Medical Cards, taking fully into account not only incomes but the burdens imposed by medical conditions, illnesses and disabilities;

“The Health Minister should consult with all Oireachtas members, not just his own party, on the effects of the cuts on citizens.

“We are calling for the Government, in extending free GP care to all, to do so on a programmed, timetabled and transparent basis and in such a way that no one entitled to a full Medical Card under the current rules will lose any of the services provided under the card in the context of a free-GP-care-for-all system.”

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