Fermoy mayor Olive Corcoran, says she’s ‘hugely distressed’ by the number of people who’ve contacted her in recent weeks about medical cards and shocked at the levels of hardship and stress they are experiencing.

“I refer to people who are working, have modest incomes and have a family member who is ill. Many of them have lost their medical cards and simply cannot cope without them. How in God’s name can you manage if you have a sick child and are just ten euro over the qualifying limit? What good is that ten euro to you in such circumstances?” she said.

She cited as one example a young mother she met who works but has to take her child regularly on the bus to Dublin for hospital treatment. She pays €75 per night for up to three nights accommodation while staying there and might have to make the same trip again a fortnight later, depending on the child’s condition. She has huge expenses including medical bills.

“She is lucky in that she has a sympathetic employer but the truth of the matter is that she would be better off uemployed,” the Mayor said.

She said another man she knows of with a large family who also works, has a wife who cannot work because of a frequently ill child who has a serious medical condition. “It’s obvious that the family would also be better off on social welfare, because of the number of children,” she said.

“I know from personal experience the kind of expenses involved when a family member is ill. They are enormous. Even people with decent incomes find it difficult to cope financially. The Government should raise the qualifying income level for working people or indeed remove it altogther while a family member is attending hospital regularly. This would improve the economy because we all know that this medical card is the reason why some people won’t take work and who can blame them? They can all do the maths. I call on the Health Minister James O’Reilly to wake up and do the Maths too,” she concluded.