Age Action has called for the bereavement clause in the legislation to remove the automatic entitlement to the over-70s medical card to be amended.

Under the legislation, published in December, anybody who would have passed the means-test as a couple would keep their medical card for three years after being bereaved. After that period the means-test for a single person would apply and they would either keep or lose their card on that basis.

However, as Deputy Alan Shatter pointed out today, the legislation only applies to those who were bereaved after January 1, 2009.

“The three-year condition had been introduced by the Government in a bid to prevent financial hardship to some older people who might otherwise have lost their medical card on the day their spouse died,” Age Action spokesman Eamon Timmins said. “But the January 1 condition unfairly limits the number of older people who will benefit.   The bottom line is that as a result of this condition many recently bereaved over-70s will face financial hardship at this particularly difficult time of their lives.”

Age Action believes the law should be amended so that anyone who would have been entitled to an over-70s medical card on the basis of the new means test as a couple, would not lose it for three years after the death of their spouse, regardless of whether this death occurred in 2009, 2008 or 2007. 

“This amendment would mean that all widows and widowers would be viewed equally by the State and treated in the same sympathetic manner,” Mr Timmins said.