Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 March 2004
120 Ms O’Sullivan asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of persons who held medical cards in June 2002 and at the latest date for which figures are available and the proportion of the population this represents in respect of each such date [7024/04]
View answerThe details requested are as follows:
|
Date |
No. of medical cards |
No. of persons covered |
Percentage of the population |
|
June 2002 |
783,612 |
1,207,096 |
30.81% |
|
February 2004 |
759,654 |
1,149,081 |
29.33% |
The reduction in the number of persons being covered by medical cards in recent years can be attributed in some measure to the rise in the numbers of persons in employment. Another factor was the data cleaning exercise which was carried out on medical card lists on health boards' databases. Since early 2003 this has nationally resulted in in excess of 80,000 persons being removed from the registers. It should be noted that most of these deletions arose from normal medical card review activity.
