PUBLIC REACTION:RESTRICTIONS ON medical cards for the over-70s would not be introduced until January 1st next year and there would be time to work through "difficulties", Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said on RTÉ Radio One yesterday.
Speaking in response to listeners' phone calls during the Today with Pat Kennyprogramme, the Minister said: "None of this will come into operation until January 1st next year.
"That's very, very important. This isn't being done overnight or next week. We'll have time to work through these difficulties."
In the course of an emotion-charged phone call, a clearly distressed elderly listener said: "My husband is 77 years of age and I am 73. I am his sole carer."
The listener's husband had a chronic medical condition that confined him to bed for most of the day, she said, "and our medical card is going to be taken off us".
The listener, whose name was Margaret, continued: "We are the people that built up this country and when my husband was working - and he gave 46 years of unblemished service to the State - we paid top dollar for his medication for 20 years, and it's putting us back in the very same situation again.
"Not alone that but we have to pay the three per cent extra Dirt and we have to pay the levy.
"It just isn't good enough and I'm not just speaking for myself, I'm speaking for all the over-70s out there."
She continued: "The doctor comes to my husband once a month, how in the name of God - I will not be able to pay the doctor - and I am paying €800 a year for physiotherapy for myself and I have to have it on an ongoing basis. How do you expect the likes of us to survive?"
Mr Lenihan said: "What we are doing in relation to everyone who is without the medical card is, we're giving €400 which you can apply for."
Margaret: "And what good is €400 to pay the doctor on a monthly basis?"
Minister: "I'd have to have all the details to give you a detailed answer on this and I certainly would look at the case with you and discuss it with you."
Asked by another listener if he had done anything about the ancillary payments to TDs through committee chairmanships etc, Mr Lenihan replied: "We decided a number of years ago at the request of all the parties to allow Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann be funded by themselves. I actually don't control their expenditure."
Mr Lenihan was also challenged about the parking levy, petrol and alcohol costs, cuts in education, the artists' tax exemption, Dirt tax and the issue of house price inflation.
