Howlin says he has ‘full confidence’ in Reilly amid medical cards row

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has told the Dáil he has "full confidence" in Minister for Health James Reilly.

He was responding to Fianna Fáil's Dara Calleary, who pointed to media reports suggesting Dr Reilly told a Fine Gael parliamentary party that Mr Howlin was blocking a resolution of the controversy around medical cards.

Mr Calleary said Dr Reilly had told the meeting the handling of the medical cards controversy was a disaster, and that while he had repeatedly sought to address the issue “apparently the political will from his Cabinet colleagues was not there until last week”.

Mr Calleary said Dr Reilly and Minister of State Alex White "are blaming someone else and that someone else is Minister Howlin". He asked Mr Howlin his response to such a claim, and if he had full confidence in Dr Reilly.

The Minister said he had “full confidence in Minister Reilly and every member of this Government, and I have full confidence in every Minister of State to do the job, the most difficult challenging job that faces us all”.

He said the Government had made mistakes and “the handling in terms of the administration and some of the letters people got is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to every member of Government and we need to do better.”

‘Cull’ of cards

He denied there had been a “cull” of medical cards and there was “no intention of having a cull of medical cards”.

Mr Calleary said 16,000 discretionary cards were cut between January 2013 and April 2014. “That is a cull in any language.” He said they were being taken from children with disabilities and families coping with serious illnesses.

Mr Howlin said 1.8 million had cards and “naturally people’s circumstances change and there are people who are losing medical cards and new people gaining them”.