Legislation required to remove entitlement of over-70s

LEGISLATION WILL be required to remove the automatic entitlement to the medical card for over-70s, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan has confirmed as the row over the controversy continue to rage in the Dáil yesterday.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny described the move as "the most stupid, callous own goal ever" and accused the Government of reducing "elderly Irish citizens to economic statistics rather than people. You've offended them, hurt their integrity and driven a stake through what they did for this country."

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said Cabinet Ministers were running like "frightened foxes from a forest fire" and leaving it in the hands of the Minister for Health, as the political fallout continued from the controversial move to save €100 million.

Three votes were called and abuse was traded across the floor of the House as Ms Coughlan attempted to explain details of the scheme.

When she confirmed that the move would be dealt with under social welfare legislation, Mr Gilmore called on pensioners and their families to get an "assurance from their TD that they will not vote for the removal of the medical card".

The Labour leader claimed there was no "fairness and equity" when nine out of 10 people over 70 with the automatic medical card would lose it and the income threshold increased by former minister Charlie McCreevy would be halved.

"Not only is the Government removing the medical card, but you're making it more difficult for them to get a medical card."

But Ms Coughlan asked how Mr Gilmore could justify condemning a move to remove automatic medical cards from "well-off pensioners, senior civil servants, High Court judges, property tycoons, Ministers of State and hospital consultants. Now you tell me where's the fairness and equity in that."

The Minister challenged the equity in the deal done to pay GPs in the medical card scheme and hit out at Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly, who was president in 2001 of the Irish Medical Organisation's GP committee, which negotiated the deal with Government.

She asked where was the fairness in the deal when some doctors got €161 for each patient while other GPs got €640, and there would be €86 million in GP payments and €30 million for pharmacists.

Dr Reilly retorted: "I can't help it if Government Ministers are so incompetent they can't count and don't know how to do deals."

Mr Kenny said the Government could forget this "callous proposal" and save €150 million by changing the rules so that pharmacies could provide generic rather than branded drugs. The Tánaiste said there were 355,000 people over 70 of whom 215,000 people who had a means-tested medical card would continue to hold it.

The remaining 140,000 would do a "simplified means test" and the HSE would provide a "simplified form", with a means starting point of €201.50. The first €20,000 of savings would be exempt.

Mr Gilmore pointed out that the scheme to introduce the over-70s medical card was introduced through the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2001 "and that means it can only be removed by legislation". Labour health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan asked if the Cabinet had agreed that the legislation would be dealt with through social welfare and called on the Minister to instruct the HSE to "take down the illegal information on medical cards from its website", because the legislation had not been amended.

Ms Coughlan said the "social welfare Bill has not been brought to Cabinet yet. Therefore we could not discuss it."

The Bill will be introduced in the Dáil in a fortnight.