Medical card restrictions should be resisted

I AM appalled at the restrictions on medical cards for the over-70s.

I feel strongly this must be resisted and I would welcome the opportunity to assist in any way — be it a petition, a protest action or pressure exerted by any organisation to protect the most vulnerable in society.

Senior citizens should not have to suffer in this distressing way at this stage of their lives.

It is inhumane and discriminatory, and to allow Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and his cabinet colleagues to do this without protest will diminish us as a caring society. Saving money at the expense of the aged is totally repulsive to any civilised nation.

It was those same senior citizens who in their working lives created the wealth which this Government (incidentally, I did not vote it) has allowed to be squandered through greed, inefficiency and incompetence.

As a worker earning just over €30,000 a year, I would prefer to pay more than the 1% levy and I think those earning more than €100,000 should be levied at more than 2% to avoid this most unjust withdrawal of medical cards from so many of our senior citizens.

After all, those who had substantial private means would then be contributing to the cost of their own medical card provision.

I can only conclude Brian Lenihan is to 21st century Ireland what Ernest Blythe was to 20th century Ireland.

Hilary E Fitzgerald

Arcadia

Ballybrassil

Cobh

Co Cork