asked the Minister for Defence if he will take steps to provide full medical attention for members of the old IRA, Fianna Éireann and Cumann na mBan having regard to their advanced age and declining numbers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Old IRA Medical Care.
11.
The Army Pensions Acts make provision for hospital and medical treatment in the case of pensioners who are in receipt of temporary awards of disability pension.
As regards other veterans of the War of Independence, the public health services are available to them on the same conditions as apply to the community generally. While it is my aim to treat veterans in the most sympathetic way possible, the case for making special provision of the kind mentioned in the question hardly arises.
I might add that there are an estimated 32,000 veterans alive at present.
I take it the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that in many countries ex-servicemen and women have available to them special medical and hospital facilities and would he not agree that it would be a decent gesture to make these facilities generously available in the autumn of their lives to those who served this State and achieved its freedom in more difficult times instead of imposing this demeaning means test to which they are at present subjected?
I am aware that these facilities are available in other countries and I am incomplete sympathy with the Deputy's point of view. This is, of course, a point of view that has been expressed on many occasions by Members of all parties in this House. I cannot go any further at the moment, but I can assure the Deputy the Minister is most sympathetic to the inclusion of these people, these members of the Old Brigade, in any special treatment we can give them as a gesture, if nothing else, in return for what they did for the country in bygone days.