Vulnerable sectors in Irish society are supplementing health service funding while the Minister for Health boasts of bumper increases in spending, the Fine Gael spokeswoman on health, Ms Olivia Mitchell, has said.
Ms Mitchell made her comments in response to Mr Martin's "attempts to justify the Health Estimates".
She added: "Adding insult to injury the Minister is being deliberately deceptive in his dealings with the media. In the figures he has given the media he asserts an increase of €891 million when in fact, the increase over the actual spend in 2003, as opposed to what he planned to spend, was €745 million.
"The increased charges in the health service announced yesterday will affect the sick and those on low incomes. The threshold for the Drugs Payment Scheme has increased by over 30 per cent since 2002," Ms Mitchell pointed out yesterday.
She added: "More and more people will be pushed out of this scheme after today's increases come into effect and it will put even more pressure on low income groups who do not have a medical card.
Increases in the price of a private bed in a public hospital is of such a magnitude, it would indicate the Minister's intention to price patients out of the private health sector altogether, she claimed.
"With additional charges for A&E and overnight stays in public beds, these are nothing but stealth taxes. It is merely fire-brigade revenue raising, it is not strategic and does nothing to promote health."