asked the Minister for Health if he proposes to exclude overtime earnings and income tax when assessing a person's income for a medical card.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Medical Cards.
11.
I do not propose at the moment to ask the chief executive officers of health boards to add to the factors which they now take into account in determining eligibility for medical cards. I am, however, keeping under constant review the adequacy and reasonableness of the guidelines which they now use and I will continue to do so.
Since it is now Government policy to exclude overtime earnings from consideration in assessing differential rents, would the Minister consider the exclusion of such earnings also in respect of medical cards?
The Minister for Health and I have given instructions to the CEOs in the different health boards to bring up-to-date the guidelines in regard to medical cards.
Does this mean that overtime earnings will be excluded in the future?
In bringing the guidelines up to date all relevant considerations will be taken into account.
Including the question of overtime earnings?
Absolutely.
I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary is aware of an increasing number of hardship cases, particularly in the Southern Health Board area, and in view of that can be say whether he will examine urgently the possibility of greater allowances in respect of such cases? No doubt he is aware of the recent withdrawal of medical cards in that area in many cases.
I agree entirely with the Deputy and that is one of the reasons why the Minister and I have asked the CEOs to keep this matter under constant review.
12.
asked the Minister for Health whether he will issue a directive to health boards to grant medical cards to each person in receipt of unemployment assistance for a period of one month or longer.
While I fully appreciate the reasoning underlying the question, the arrangement suggested would not be appropriate primarily because a person in receipt of unemployment assistance could already be the holder of a medical card. Health boards do, however, in assessing eligibility for medical cards, have regard to other means tests which the applicant may have undergone to qualify for State benefits, and this, of course, helps considerably in speeding up the granting of medical cards.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that a person who is in receipt of unemployment assistance should be entitled to a medical card? There is a means test for unemployment assistance.
The Deputy is aware that in 99 per cent of such cases, there is entitlement to medical cards but there are some cases—and this might apply more to south Kerry than to other areas—where there is a means test and where the valuation of land is a consideration, but valuation is not always the best way of judging a person's means.
Surely this reply is a direct contradiction of a statement made by the Minister for Health when he stated categorically in reply to a question from me that every unemployment assistance recipient who applied for a medical card was deemed to be entitled to this benefit. What the Parliamentary Secretary is saying now falls far short of that.
My information is that when a person applies for a medical card, regardless of whether his income may be £1,000 or £2,000 per year, the case is always decided on its merits by the CEO. I think that is fair enough.
I wish the Parliamentary Secretary and his Minister were on the same wavelength in this regard.
The Deputy is being argumentative.
This is a serious problem. The Minister has said that any unemployment assistance recipi-ent——
We cannot have an argument on the matter.
——was entitled to a medical card, but what the Parliamentary Secretary is saying is that such person is not entitled automatically to a medical card. They should both make up their minds as to where they stand on this issue.
A medical card will not be denied in any hardship case.
That is a different question from the subject matter of this question.