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Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Dáil today. Oireachtas TV
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Taoiseach pledges to solve problem of medical cards being removed from sick children

Enda Kenny said proposals were being submitted tomorrow in a bid to fix the problems with the system.

TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY says he is going to fix the problem of discretionary medical cards being taken away from families with ill children.

Kenny was asked about the issue in the Dáil today when the deputy leader of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald asked what he was going to do about the situation.

Despite the Minister for Health James Reilly stating that there is no “cull” of medical cards, figures obtained by TheJournal.ie, shows that there has been a fall of over 16,000 discretionary cards from the period of January 2013-April 2014.

‘Unacceptable’

Yesterday, the Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the taking away of medical cards from sick children was “unacceptable”.

McDonald raised the case of Katie Connolly, a six-year-old girl with Down Syndrome, who has had her discretionary medical card withdrawn.

Speaking in the Dáil today, Kenny said he was well aware of the issues surrounding discretionary medical cards, saying: “I am going to fix that problem”.

He added, “the whole process, the way of dealing with these, is not the way I want it to be”.

He said he was eager to fix the problem and said he had a set of proposals for the sub committee tomorrow.

Read: Number of discretionary medical cards falls by over 16,000>

Read:  Over 50,000 sign petition over discretionary medical cards as parents say ‘no more’>

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