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THE HSE HAVE announced that an expert panel have been appointed to examine how medical need should be taken into account when discretionary medical cards are being granted.
The expert panel consists of 23 professionals from a wide range of medical disciplines.
They will consider which medical conditions should automatically qualify for a medical card.
The public consultation process will get underway tomorrow.
Fine Gael Cork South Central TD and Chairman of the Oireachtas Health Committee Jerry Buttimer has welcomed the announcement.
“The appointment of the expert panel is a very important step in changing the way discretionary medical cards are awarded.
We are now moving to a system where, for the first time ever, medical cards can be awarded to people because they have a serious medical condition rather than just because they fall below an income threshold.
“I am particularly pleased that the expert panel has been asked to take the views of patient advocacy groups into account”.
The Our Children’s Health campaign group have been calling on the Government to amend the Health Act of 1970 so that any child diagnosed with a serious illness or congenital condition are automatically entitled to a full medical card.
Under the current legislation the HSE can give a discretionary medical card to a family who have “undue financial hardship”.
From January 2013 to April 2014, there was a 22 per cent drop in those considered eligible for a discretionary medical card.
Buttimer added that:
We must learn from the mistakes of the past and that is why I am also encouraging the public to make their views known as part of the public consultation process, which is getting underway tomorrow.
“Now we are finally reforming the system for the better to ensure that those with serious medical conditions, as well as those with economic constraints, can access the care they need.”
Hope Alan Kelly gets Leader. Wipeout next election.
Sure you were saying he’d be gone this election.
Hoping he would be gone.
Roaring like a pig on steroids – a most unedifying spectacle – Kelly.
In the last seat by the skin of his teeth on the 7th count, despite being deputy leader of a government party and Minister. Not the greatest achievement to be honest.
Does this mean Labour won’t get speaking rights in the Dail?
@ dni: If Willie Penrose is elected in Longford-Westmeath, they’ll get speaking rights.
Hopefully Joan has finished speaking
Hopefully they won’t…..save listening to moaning joan and her screeching
I bet the SD’s are hoping he does………..
I see one of the journalists from the Sunday Business Post is tweeting that only one technical group can be formed and that Labour should get in there with Social Democrats. Now the best thing S.D could do is stay as far away from Alan Kelly and Co. but I’m sure they know that.
LMAO..did you see the RNU/LAB member beside him. HMMMMM guess that little stunt didn’t work out to well either.
SO SO happy ;)
Labour will be back.
5 years moaning in opposition, being made look good by the Left and SF/PIRA.
Just look at Fianna Fáil and the Greens.
You reckon the next dail will last 5 years dermo?
Can we have tipp secede from the union and then invade them, capture kelly and pit him on spike island, and steal their apples?
Cannot get over such an odious treasonous koont like kelly being elected by anyone….u can understand all the snobs backing fg but skum kelly beggars belief.
Probably not Shinnerbot, they’ll be in opposition for 5 years though…
Need to work on your Sinn-Spin:
Fintan O’Toole:
“In the 2011 general election, left-wing parties (Labour, Sinn Féin and the United Left Alliance) received 31.5% of the vote.
In this contest, the nearest equivalent array of parties (Sinn Féin, Labour, AAA-PBP and Social Democrats) received 27%.
A couple of former ULA TDs were successfully returned as Independents, but their impact on the national result is marginal.
And of the 24 or so Independents elected across the country, only a third could be described as left-wing.”
It’s ok, shinnerbots ain’t so good at maths.
Do you miss the Labour Party yet?
You’re gruoping labour with the left wing there, dermo. Good one.
But, seeing as though quoting newspaper columnists is the theme for the afternoon….
Gene Kerrigan:
“The collective vote of the right wing parties is shrinking. Thirty years ago, in 1987, they – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour, the PDs – got 89pc of the vote.
Twenty years ago, in 1997, they got 82pc.
At the last election it was 72pc.
Now, it’s about 57pc.
This election was about slowly evolving change.”
If I was Director of Elections for a party which had just been virtually decimated, I’d be hiding – not strutting around as if I was The King. Is there no end to the selfishness and arrogance of this Kelly thing?
Was praying you’d say that Shinnerbot!
More Fintan O’Toole:
“Some will argue that the Labour Party should not be considered left, but they can’t have it both ways. The 19 per cent of the electorate who voted Labour in 2011 must have believed they were voting for a left party; otherwise the charge that they were subsequently misled doesn’t stand up.)”
How many DOB insiders have we left? Good job in getting rid of as many as we can but unfortunately theres ‘always rats’ to quote Terence Big Balls. Lowry is one, Kelly second. Good riddance Labour, more power to SF.
It must make you sad to see Fianna Fáil hoover up so many Labour seats….
Again, congrats on wiping out Labour and resurrecting Fianna Fáil!
Kelly didn’t even reach the quota in Tipperary. FF transfers got him in ahead of Fine Gael’s Tom Hayes. Mehole Martin’s fault he’s still around.
Paudi, FF have plenty of connections with Dobby also. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. FF FG and Redacted are all the one behind the scenes.
https://www.directdemocracyireland.ie/denis-obrien-appoints-brian-cowan-to-second-directorship/
“Was praying you’d say that Shinnerbot!”
I think you need to get out more dermo.
I was one of the 19% who voted labour in 2011. They have since proven themselves to be as FG as FG. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be the establishment partys. But the writings on the wall. The 2.5 party system which has dominated politics in this state has dropped its combined support by 15% in 5 years.
“It must make you sad to see Fianna Fáil hoover up so many Labour seats….”
Interesting spin dermo.
In 2011 FF and FG combined won 95 seats.
This time FF and FG combined look to win about 93-94, basically little change
The most likely scenario is that the labour seats have gone to the true left, and the two main conservative partys have merely swapped back voters.
Good lad, you’ve just agreed with me.
The left’s vote share had dropped from 31.5% to 27% in 5 years.
The “establishment” did just fine. Plenty of “establishment” independents from the same gene pool.
We have a new 2.5 party system with SF (turning into FF-Lite). Hard to claim to be around for 111 years, in power in NI, and also claim to be “anti-establishment”!!
(Vin B calls Labour and your SF/PIRA movement the “Fake Left”, but that’s for another day)
“Good lad, you’ve just agreed with me. The left’s vote share had dropped from 31.5% to 27% in 5 years. ”
I didn’t actually. Your logic only works if you assume labour were a true left wing party 5 years ago. As we have seen by their actions the last 5 years that was not the case, whether people cast their vote on that assumption in 2011 or not.
Poor dermo, not quite as clever as he thinks he is.
By the way dermo, you never told everyone your favourite election headline from the weekend.
“Fine Gael mauled by voters” is deffo doing it for me.
Lols, you just “admitted” you voted left by voting Labour in 2011.
As O’Toole said, you can’t have it both ways.
Seem to be still assuming all independents are left-wing. That’s adorable.
A 4.5% drop in the Left’s vote in 5 years.
A 12.8% drop for Labour.
A 3.8% rise for Sinn Féin.
Already told you champ, I loved An Phoblacht’s:
“Sinn Féin landslide with 3.8% increase”
Ah, you’re back Diarmuid. You lost your voice for a while there. We need you back.
FF/FG had 88 seats last week.
FF/FG has 94 seats this week.
You forgot the 8 seats cut from the Dáil.
Glad to help out with the maths Shinnerbot!
Rashers stop bring rude to pigs, they have feelings unlike some lunatic TDs
What sort of people elect such a dodgy crook like him? Says more about the electorate than yer man.
Get rid of this stupid system and have first past the post. Chancers like Side Show Kelly would never get in. Time we binned PR.
Dont feed the white monkey troll! Hasn’t got the balls to go by his own name
Being..
For Connolly your doing a fantastic job winding up the monkey keep it up
Nothing on FF coming out today and saying water charges are a red line issue and they won;t support FG as long as water charges are an active issue?
They’ve also demanded 2k tax credit for those with childcare costs.
This is great. FG are a lame duck and now they’ll be forced to do what they should have done all along. They’ll be humiliated.
Also, as I predicted, nor will they support Kenny for leader they say so he’s gone too. Bye Enda. Hello Coveney.
I’d love Enda to be the one to make the announcement regarding IW being scrapped.
He’ll be gone by the end of the week. The media are playing catch up because none of them have a bloody clue what’s going on.
It’s very clear. FG will be propped up from the opposition benches by FF.
In the meantime, over the next few weeks, we’ll get a lot of this Dail reform we all so desperately want and need. FF are driving this now, and none of the other parties have woken up yet and made any capital out of this.
Also, FF missed a few reform tricks they could have put forward, but I suspect other parties will suggest them either way.
FF signed this country up to water charges, when they invited the IMF to town.
They’ll never miss a populist trick though.
Even managed to add a Haughey and a Cowen to their ranks. They’ll chew up all in the way!
Will have to run it by DOBBO first
Here Sean. Call him by his proper name. Mr Redacted.
On a personal level I feel sympathy for the guy.. had some progressive ideas………but that’s the price you pay for betraying the people.
Aodhán Ó Riordáin is a careerist politician who made a critical mistake.
He allowed his party to get sucked into Tory…..sorry…Fine Gael spin………and secondly his over reliance on politically correct social media propaganda.
My guess?
He’ll jump ship at some point in the near future as Labour are heading the way of the Titaniic.
The man never had an original thought in his life. He’s another Eamonn Ryan. A waste of a suit.
Oran, don’t forget the scribble and the shite (curry sauce) on his office door, when he was trying to rubbish citizen protesters. I won’t forget, nor will I forgive.
He did a lot of good work for minority and gay rights.
Well spoken, good communicator, he’ll be back in a couple years.
Great to see another excuse for a politician getting turfed out.The gravy train is almost full..
No he didn’t, Diarmuid. He jumped on whichever bandwagon looked like the most right-on, and made proposals about how to shut up anyone who disagreed with him. The worst kind of bleeding heart. Good riddance, enjoy the severance payment.
Dail reform” is the newest act of Fianna Fail political grooming, equivalent to slipping of a box of chocolates to an obese person that had been trying to be good. The idea is the same as eating sweets: it looks good, it tastes good, but you have that nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you starting to self-hate again, and, tragically, rip the colourful box that the nice Mr Martin has waved under your face.
The settled truth of the matter is that the key assumptions underpinning the nature of Irish social policy will remain untouched by any of the reforms proposed by Michael Martin.
Assumption 1. Health inequality in profound and fully rooted into Irish society. The two tier nature of Irish health demands that, (a) people who pay a private insurance premium will continue to have an advantage conferred upon them, over the low classes, who don’t “pay” extra. (b) The Irish medical profession has grown fat on the two tier system. They have the power (freely given by successive governments) to run down the public system, exploit its funding for training, emergency services, cancer treatment, etc, but, then, get to drive down the road in their Merc or BMW to perform elective procedures at increasingly prolific “private” facilities we all know so well, from all those radio and TV adverts.
Assumption 2. Only those with no capacity to dodge tax can be fully taxed. Ordinary, sitting duck citizens pay between forty and fifty percent of their income in taxes to pay for an ever evolving and expanding public service. Access to decent education, transport, and health are vital elements of any competitive, modern society and economy. However, the assumption is that business and especially US multi nationals cannot and will not pay a fair contribution to such services, services that those businesses and corporations depend upon. The deference we adopt to the idea that the already low tax rate of business cannot even be fully applied, is akin to national prostitution.
Assumption 3. The Irish media will continue to act slavishly on behalf of the proponents and beneficiaries of the first two assumptions. The degree to which the media here attack and undermine anyone that questions the status quo is deeply disturbing. The role Denis O’Brien enjoys, controlling and directing the disgraceful INM group, acts as a cancer, corroding the fabric of Irish public discourse. RTE, too, has been reduced to a body that will willingly pounce like an attack dog on anyone that challenges assumption 1 or 2.
No amount of grooming of the opposition in Dail Eirean will change any of this. It will, however advance the charge of Michael Martin, whose only ambition is to get back to the glory days of overarching control of Irish society on behalf of the architects and beneficiaries of this failed republic.
Lol
Too true Declan, if FF had any kind of majority he would grasp power with an Iron Fist, but because the numbers and rules don’t suit him now he proposes “reform”!! Where was the call for reform over the last 20 years?
Reform of the Dail is not what SF or the left want. You might have to contribute as opposed to protesting against everything. At least Shane Ross and colleagues actually want to contribute.
Reform of the Dail is the only it will function given the mix that is currently there.
So we’ll do nothing Declan? We’ll moan for another 5 years? We’ll allow things to carry on as before and let the opportunity pass us by. I’m beginning to think there are sections of the left that don’t actually want anything to change.
No Jane, don’t misunderstand me. My point is about the cynical posturing and electionering of Martin. if ever the fable of the frog and the Scorpion appiled, it applies now.
Fair enough Declan and I wouldn’t trust him either but should it stop us from trying this? They’ll all be in there together trying to agree reform, if he is seen to be insincere we will be told very quickly by other parties. Then he will be slaughtered in next election. Also just because this came from Martin this reform doesn’t and shouldn’t belong to FF. I can’t understand the lack of enthusiasm for this.
Well, I can understand how consensus politics sounds attractive on paper. But why are we denigrating opposition so quickly? Opposition provides an extremely important role in our democratic process, otherwise we wouldn’t have discovered scandals such as Siteserv, NAMA etc. Also The Dail was practically and largely run as a consensus from c.95 to 2007, with some “opposition” shouting for even more reductions in financial and building regulations. The few lone voices that disagreed like Joe Higgins were sneered at as a looney and Bertie robbed the socialist shirt off his back!
I think beware of the dangers of group-think, opposing voices are good and since Plato are the most logical way of solving problems.
Why can’t we have both? Come together for a few meetings and agree reform of the Dail and get it through then they can go back to their own corners and carry on as before if they so wish. It doesn’t have to be either or.
On quite another note – and this is a real sickener – heard a bit of RTE news on my way back to work. Apparently, all that’s exercising them there is “who’s going to get the trips abroad on St. Patrick’s day – Does anybody know?” etc., etc., I, personally would be in favour of sending Indah – with his poxy bowl of shamrock – to see Obama and maybe ring the Nasdaq bell for the last time – he seemed to enjoy it so much, god love him.
Who we sending to Iraq?
Who’ll take the horse to France?
Rashers we should send Indah to Syria, Irish exports need a boost there and our Great Leader would go down very well there with his natural wit and charm
Another labour liar gone, excellent news, made my day
FF almost twice as popular as SF, lol. Poor shinnerbots must be devastated
Oh, I’m sure the thoughts of your beloved enda being played like a fiddle by the old enemy, and the fact that they’ve increased their Dail representation by over half, is providing some comfort.
By the way ‘michael’ any hope of your crap gaining traction went out the window when Hugh, yes HUGH, conceded that SF had a good election.
Denise Mitchell elected – Come on the shinners and feck the begrudgers.
SF did not have a good election they had a great election under Vote is up 3.5% to 14.5% and nearly 23 seats
I didn’t vote for FG, ya clown. Im delighted that Martin has made a show of Kenny and your beloved Adams. All the sh!te talking your shinners did prior to the election. All the while praying that SF would come out on top. They didn’t even close to FF or FG in popularity, despite the recession and austerity. Says a lot, really. As the economy improves, SF will slip further down the polls, and your shilling will look even sadder than usual.
Don’t be so bitter and spiteful MM. It is sad to watch.
Ah Mad Micheal, will ya give over. I’m tempted to start voting SF just to spite people like you.
What’s there to be bitter about? You were beaten badly in the election
Michael, it was, sorry to say, an excellent election for Sinn Féin, they increased their Dail reps by nine, they will increase Seanad representation too in a few weeks and, having learned from the scot’s in the six counties, they will never give an inch, we need realise, they are growing, dangerous for the rest of Ireland given the hash they’ve made in the six counties but, it’s where we are today.
I will hold my hands up, prior to the twenty sixth I predicted Fianna Fáil would, perhaps, take thirty seats, I was wrong and am happy to congratulate Micheal Martin and his teams for reversing the, one time media predictions of five years ago but, for those of us who are Republican, not wanting to shoot other Irish folk just cos they don’t attend our Church or social events, please, do not go into government with Finé Gael, or even support them from the sideline.
5 years ago going into an election, Sinn Féin had 4 seats,after that election they had 14,
after this election they will have incredibly INCREASED their total seat count by almost 600% from 2 elections ago….
In anyones book that is a fantastic achievement, keeping taking those denial pills moderate michael, actually, I think you had better double your dose.
they’ll reach 50 seats next time and they know cos FF/FG are not going to make a difference in fact it will be worse because theyre power struggling on their current vote number. Jinxed and fecked.
Not a bit of it Mod Mick. Your Mick has to jump before he gets burnt.
Labour tds fell on Kelly and Burton’s sword. They both destroyed the party for personal power.they brought labour away from its founding principles. And they keep their seats. Or is kellys plan working, to be leader, he is a dirty trickster.
very lucky to get back in, he wouldn’t last in any other constituency nor would lowry for that matter. they won’t get further. penrose is not looking good to get them to 7. expect kelly to sell himself over to FG just out of spite, but even more of a wrong move. the people simply don’t want them.
‘but, ominously, Ardagh has a barrister in attendance with her’……..but, ominously, she is a Barrister! As well as being a solicitor so, why the second opinion?
Best news in heard today was the demise of Aodhan O Riordan. Congratulations to the people of Dublin Bay North for removing another member of The Champagne Socialist Party.
Labour are now been moved from ‘intensive’ care onto life support … If Willie Penrose drops out who will volunteer÷÷÷÷to÷÷÷÷÷pull÷÷÷÷÷the÷÷÷÷÷???????___________
Anyone else notice the well known dissident republican standing next to o riordan and kelly
The shinners should have had 30 seats at least. It was a bad election.
Labour and FG spent all their energy hitting at the shinners, That cost them
they’ll get there, its coming.
Enda, you clown. . Whats rubbish you speak. Fine Gael got 76 seats the last time but only got 49 this election – a drop of 27 seats while Sinn Féin’s total went up from 14 seats to 23. So what that Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil wasted all their time hitting at the Shinners. The Shinner vote went up, stupid, because ordinary people got fed up with their diversion from the real issues and dumped them. Great stuff.
Don’t let Ireland think Dublin supported FG. We just felt it was too soon to trust FF again
Another Liebour numpty gone, great news!
Bring back Ged Nash. He is good at counting on his toes and talking through his a?se.
Not so good at thinking on his feet or winning seats. Definitely no good at walking on water like Gerry.
Whatever the results might be, a large section of Irish society has been let down by constitutional politics. The problems of the past won’t be forgotten over night and the chickens will soon come home to roost.
have your say