It continues to do that.

With regard to medical cards, funding was provided this year to allow the HSE to introduce 30,000 additional medical cards and income assessment guidelines to assess these medical cards.

The cards were not introduced. There is none. There is a savage review of existing cards.

The negotiations with the Irish Medical Organisation have been completed. The Department and the HSE are reviewing the operation of the income assessment guidelines. Funding has been provided to allow the HSE to introduce 200,000 new GP visit cards. The issues that delayed this process, of which the House is well aware, were successfully clarified and finalised last week, on 29 September. There is now agreement on all of the issues. The HSE will continue to produce the cards. As the House knows, if we had issued the cards without finding industrial relations agreement——

You did.

——the House would complain about that. The Tánaiste has continued all this year to implement the ten-point plan for accident and emergency services. Most of those initiatives are well under way. All of them are assisting in improving accident and emergency services in hospitals throughout the country. An improvement is apparent in many accident and emergency departments in regard to infrastructure as well as staffing, consultant cover and nurses cover. I accept that problems remain in some of the accident and emergency departments. The Government, the Tánaiste and I are committed to working with the HSE and voluntary hospitals to try to improve those issues.

On the legislation to enable payment to those who are entitled to a refund of funding, we have given a commitment on that. The necessary process to get that system in order is under way. Legislation will be passed and we will make those payments as soon as possible.

That was a pretty lacklustre statement of confidence in the Minister for Health and Children. The Taoiseach has still not dealt with the issues with regard to the record of the past 12 months. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste could have issued 30,000 full medical cards six to nine months ago. Once they made that announcement and allocated the funding, members of the public could have had access to their doctor because they would have been covered by a medical card. It would not require any industrial relations negotiations. Those cards have still not issued to people who are on low incomes and in desperate need of them.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Health and Children are responsible for that. However, nothing the Taoiseach said explains to the public how it is that the money is still in the coffers instead of out there, helping people to access health care. The Taoiseach should explain this to all the families who cannot afford to go to the chemist to get medication or go to the doctor when their children are sick. How is it that the Taoiseach is denying people access to health care when they need it and when we have one of the richest economies in the world? It is an extraordinary indictment of the Government. Nothing the Taoiseach said gives any confidence to the public that he knows anything about the needs of the health service and patients.

I stated that funding had been provided and that the income assessment guidelines used to assess medical card applications had been increased by 7.5% to achieve 30,000 additional cards. New cards are being issued every day.

As well as those being cancelled, the net figure is nil.

Some people have moved beyond the income guidelines. If salaries increase, some are no longer entitled to cards and do not get them. However, those who are entitled to cards get them. That is how the system has always worked.

Some 1,149,000 people are covered by medical cards, a situation which improves day by day. Moreover, the Tánaiste has made changes never before made by any Minister for Health and Children. If the Deputy wants me to give glowing praise to the Tánaiste, I certainly will, because she introduced the changes on child care——

What changes?

——on mortgages and on net pay.

What changes on child care?

We did not hear about them.

I missed that press conference.

These changes were very helpful. They allow people who would not have got them before to get medical cards. The Deputies protest because they do not like to see excellent reforms introduced by the Tánaiste to improve the net position of people on medical cards. The Tánaiste has achieved that.