Medical cards might kill off Labour

The moment of truth has arrived for this Government, particularly for Labour.

During the Celtic Tiger, medical cards were flung around, many! to persons and families who exceeded the eligibility criteria. These cards should be reviewed and withdrawn. However, there is a political problem. Some medical-card holders have grown older, and frailer.

For others, their relatives become dependent on the card for alleviation of pain, discomfort and disability.

Even the bereavement grant is to be removed.

The case for withdrawing these cards would be open-and-shut were it not for the fact that significant numbers of the ‘comfortable’ in our society have not experienced the real suffering of the recession.

Early in the Famine, the then British Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, declared that it was not the role of government to feed the people. Gradually, over three years, successive governments modified this stance, goaded by the disappearance, via hunger, disease and emigration, of three million of Her Majesty’s Irish subjects.

When Labour signed on for this Coalition, it did so largely because the balance of opinion suggested that it was its patriotic duty to do so — in a national emergency. From the very start, it was clear, that this Government would shield the “comfortable” from discomfort. Labour blinked and Labour has paid for that blink, having lost its credibility as a party “for all the people” and possibly its very political existence.

There is no simple answer to the problem of the medical cards.

Labour must insist that the review be paused — pending an objective examination — and replaced with an equitable solution. Labour must insist that Health Minister James Reilly stand aside, pending a review of his stewardship of the health services.

Labour must insist that the draft Finance Bill, (and the Budget), be amended so that the ‘comfortable’ are seen to be shouldering a proportionate share of the burden.

This is the moment of truth, when Labour’s TDs and senators decide whether they want to be a subset of Fine Gael or, their emergency national service done, resume Labour’s historic mission to be the party, (and, eventually, the provider), of an Irish social democracy.

Maurice O’Connell

Tralee

Co Kerry