‘We’re a society, not an economy. I hope they’ve learned that’

"So I’m getting my card back mammy." These were the words of Ronan Woodhouse, 8, after his long battle with the Government to get his medical card back came to an end.

Last October, despite an eye infection, he waited for two hours outside a hotel in Limerick hoping to get a word with the Taoiseach on the way into the Fine Gael annual conference.

His mother, Noreen Keane, believes that if Enda Kenny stopped to talk to them, rather than driving past on that winter evening, he might have saved himself a lot of political hassle.

She could have told him about the huge costs endured and therapies foregone for her child who has Down Syndrome and suffers chronic asthma, sight difficulties, hearing loss and needs a lot of medication and many visits to the GP.

Mother and son have put up a fight since last September when the card he had since birth was suddenly and unexpectedly removed. They are delighted with the latest announcement, but Noreen says “I will really believe it when I have written confirmation.”

She accepts the apology from Government for what her family have endured, but said that it should never have happened. “If they are truly fulsome in their apology and want to right this wrong, and make recompense for this mistake, then they should compensate those who are out of pocket,” she said.

The Limerick mother believes the cost of medical expenses for the nine months without a medical card, runs into the thousands.

She spent around €150 a month on medication and about €60 a month on doctor visits until Ronan got a GP visit card in March.

She currently has an outstanding €600 bill for Ronan’s childcare, for which half of the bill had been met through the medical card before he lost it.

She said the Government’s claim that the withdrawal of cards was an “unintended consequence” had “really stuck in my craw”.

She said: “We have been telling them about this consequence for so long and they didn’t listen. They are only hearing it as a result of the election.”

She said: “There are people and human suffering behind these ‘unintended consequences’. The level of stress and anxiety this has caused myself and my family, the amount of time I have put into this, has been phenomenal.”

While she is happy that she never gave up the fight against something she said was “ethically and morally wrong from the start”, she said she shouldn’t have been forced to go through it.

“A lot of the precious time I should have been spending with my son, I spent sitting in offices arguing for his card,” she said. “We really had to jump through hoops and we were constantly told by the HSE that it would be illegal to give the card back, almost like I was some kind of criminal.” She said the Government’s climb-down on the issue this week “really shows the strength of people power and standing up for what is right and true and fair”.

She said: “It is a testament of the Irish people that, as a society, we want to take care of our most vulnerable.

“The Government lost sight of that and they were treating us as an economy, not a society and that is where the disconnect happened. I hope they have learned the lesson.”