Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation Dail Éireann — 2025-05-14 ============================================================ Mairéad Farrell (SF), Galway West Will the Taoiseach advise if there has been a change of approach with regard to medical cards? Over the last while, a significant number of people have come to me, especially older women who have had medical cards for a long time and whose cards are now suddenly being taken away from them. Has there been a change of approach? Figures released to me show an increase in the number of people who are applying for medical cards but a decrease in the number of medical cards being issued. As well as medical cards, a lot of people have come to me who have not been given a discretionary medical card. We see in the numbers there has been a halving in the number of discretionary medical cards issued in the last number of years. I am trying to get to the bottom of this. Has there been a change of approach? If the Taoiseach is not aware of a change of approach, will he find out if there has been a change of approach by the Department? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-05-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-05-14