It is "a total waste of time" for TDs to be asking questions every day in the Dáil about medical cards for individual constituents, the author of a report on medical cards and difficulties qualifying for them said yesterday.
Ms Ita Mangan said a standard answer was always given to these Dáil questions, which was that they would be referred to the individual's local health board.
The only point, therefore, in TDs asking such questions, she agreed, was that it would allow them to tell constituents they had done something for them.
Ms Mangan, who prepared her report for Comhairle, the Government-established umbrella organisation for the network of Citizen Information Centres across the State, claimed health boards were not fulfilling their requirements under the Freedom of Information Act under which, she said, they were required to make freely available information on their rules and their interpretation of the rules used to make decisions on medical card eligibility. This was not happening, she said.
She added that health boards did not widely publicise the fact that refusal of a medical card could be appealed. There was no information available on the numbers of appeals that succeeded as health boards did not give out this information, Ms Mangan said.
