Indeed I do not. I want to raise the issue of medical cards. In budget 2013, the Government signalled that a further €750 million would be cut from the health budget for the year. The Minister may recall that where precisely those cuts were to be made was about as clear as mud. We were informed that medical card entitlements would be targeted, but we were not given the specifics.

Like many other Deputies, my constituency office has since that time been inundated with people who bear the brunt of these cuts and by citizens who have had their medical card entitlements removed. In many cases, these are people from households suffering mortgage distress or people who have difficulty trying to make ends meet as a result of the extra taxes the Government has introduced. I find it particularly reprehensible that cancer patients are now to be denied medical cards. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, is the Minister responsible for cuts and austerity and he bears much of the responsibility for this decision, which prevents seriously ill people from getting the care and treatment they need. This is a shameful situation. Removing medical cards from cancer patients makes a mockery of any claim to be reforming the health care service or providing free primary care for all.

Does the Minister have any inkling of or interest in the impact this cut to medical cards for cancer patients will have? Will he intervene with the Minister for Health and will he say something to those people who are battling cancer and serious disease who now find the Government is to remove their entitlement to a medical card?

As normal, the Deputy opposite never lets the truth of a situation get in the way of a line. Normally she is wrong. Let me give the facts. Some 43% of the population now have medical cards, the highest number ever.

The Minister does not understand the issue.

The Minister without interruption.

Last year, 1.854 million people were covered by medical cards. This year it is planned to extend that to 1.9 million people. Therefore, the numbers covered by medical cards are increasing and the funding provided for them is increasing. There are decisions being made about medical cards - for example, with regard to automatic provision of medical cards in some categories - because discretionary medical cards are very important in allowing the HSE, under the Health Act, to make provision on a case-by-case basis for people who need them. Rather than allowing a category of people who may suffer from an illness but are not in difficulty with regard to paying to be automatically covered, we are providing the flexibility to deal with everybody on a case by case basis, so that those in greatest need can be guaranteed they will have the medical cover they require. That is a more sensible and rational way of dealing with the issue, rather than, as happened in the past, automatically granting medical cards to entire categories of people regardless of financial means, as happened in the case of people over the age of 70. In times of scarce resources, as now, it is important to make rational decisions. The decision is that anybody who would have undue hardship in providing medical cover, whatever his or her illness, will be entitled to a medical card. This will remain the case.

I asked specifically about cancer patients. All of us are aware of the physical and mental trauma a cancer diagnosis brings to an individual and his or her family. Whatever the Minister may say about discretion or automatic provision, no rational or fair person would be of any other view but that a person suffering from cancer should be automatically entitled to medical card coverage. This should be automatic, such is the gravity of the illness and the position in which the person finds himself or herself.

Has the Deputy a question for the Minister?

The Minister trots out figures and gives the impression that the Government is one of largesse and generosity. He tells us repeatedly that it is a government that wants to provide full health care for all. Yet in this specific instance and in these specific cases, it demonstrates a mean-spiritedness with regard to people who are very ill. Anybody who suffers from cancer and is asked to bear the full cost of his or her treatment can tell us how very expensive it is. The cost is ruinous in many cases.

Thank you, Deputy.

This is happening against a backdrop of many people falling out of the private health care system, for reasons with which we are all too familiar.

The Minister has not given me an answer in explanation for this mean-spirited and despicable decision because, really, he cannot. Is that not the truth?

Thank you, Deputy.

The Minister cannot stand over stripping medical card cover from cancer patients, or can he? Is the Government now-----

Sorry, Deputy. You are way over time. Would you please listen to the Chair?

-----so depraved and at such a level that it will even stand over that?

There is no question but that we in this House understand the gravity for any individual or family touched by cancer. Most of us have friends or family members who have endured that. There are a variety of very serious illnesses that equally strike terror into people. The principles underscoring the provision of a medical card as set out in the Health Act 1970 are that we provide comprehensive free medical cover to anybody who cannot, without undue hardship, arrange for GP services and full health services for themselves. It is a rational, reasonable and sensible way of providing such cover that we would look at each individual case. In a time of absolute plenty, yes, everybody should be entitled to a medical card, but in times of scarcer resources, those who demonstrably are financially in a position to pay for their own medical care should be required to carry that burden.

I did not ask about that.

We make rational decisions on the basis of the determinant laid out in the law. If there is hardship involved in the provision of proper and robust medical cover, then a medical card should be provided, regardless of the illness.