First rise in medical card awards in 16 months ‘for the election’

There was a dramatic spike in the number of discretionary medical cards awarded last month — the first increase since January 2013 — which the opposition claim was for "election purposes".

Department of Health figures show that almost 800 new cards were granted in April, a reversal of the trend of the previous 16 months.

There have been consistent drops in the number of discretionary medical cards, ranging from between 500 and 1,000 a month — bringing the figure down from 62,445 at the start of last year to 49,596 in March 2014.