Pensioners welcome Cowen's medical card intervention

The Irish Senior Citizen's Parliament has welcomed the Taoiseach Brian Cowen's intervention in the medical card controversy.

However, they said the protest rally will go ahead as planned on Wednesday, October 22.

The group has urged all older people and their families to continue to make their views known to their public representatives.

The Taoiseach has intervened in an effort to quell the controversy surrounding the introduction of means-testing for medical cards.

Last night, Wicklow backbencher Joe Behan resigned from Fianna Fáil over the Budget decision to end automatic entitlement to medical cards for those over 70 years of age and backbench Green party deputies also called for a re-think.

However Brian Cowen is refusing to back down on the issue.

The Taoiseach has said a committee to examine how the proposal can be restructured will be established so that more acceptable arrangements can be found.

Mr Cowen said: "We have to get the savings - the country is still going to be spending €9m more per week than it receives in tax revenue next year.

"Once we get the savings I’m quite prepared to be creative and pragmatic about getting a solution that might be more widely acceptable."