Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11 ============================================================ Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan The Minister talks about spelling it out. I will spell it out for him again. People are struggling with a cost-of-living crisis and the Government does not get that. People with disabilities or care needs are particularly struggling and the Government does not get that. The way we know it does not get that is because there are vulnerable people who need blister packs to get by in their day-to-day lives and to have some semblance of independence. Currently they get those blister packs free of charge and this Scrooge-like Government through its Scrooge-like Minister is going to charge them €20, €30, maybe even €50 per month come the new year. I am asking the Minister to finally get it and get live to the fact that people are going through really tough times and, rather than a kick in the teeth from Government, they need a little bit of support. What they need above all is that the supports currently in place are not removed. He did not answer my question directly, so I will ask him again. Please will he give assurance to those people who rely on blister packs that the Government will not impose these charges in January? Will it finally hear the cries coming into all of our constituency offices for a little bit of understanding on the part of this out-of-touch Government? --- 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/2025-12-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-11