Minister Paschal Donohoe will announce a major expansion of the medical cards scheme for over-70s in the budget on Tuesday.
It is understood that €10million will be put aside by Mr Donohoe to extend the free medical services to more of the elderly.
The reform of the scheme will see the minimum threshold a person can earn increase from €500 to up to €550 to qualify for the medical card.
But last night, as negotiations rumbled on in Government Buildings, it was looking like the increase would be more modest at around €20.
An increase of this amount would cost the State €10million next year, while a €50 hike would cost closer to €30million.
A €50 hike would benefit 55,000 people, while the smaller hike of €20 would bring some 20,000 into the system.
Junior Minister at the Department of Health, and member of the Independent Alliance, Finian McGrath, was leading the push for this sweetener in the budget in Government Buildings all weekend.
He told the Irish Mirror: “This will benefit thousands, tens of thousands.
“There are some people that are missing out by just €20 or €30 a week and the lack of a card is causing real hardship, especially as many of these are looking after somebody else that might be very elderly or disabled.”
Fine Gael will introduce the most penny-pinching Budget since the depths of the recession.
The party was slammed on Monday night for its incompetent management of the public finances, as it prepares to deliver its last Budget of this Government.
Labour leader Brendan Howlin said the “conservative thinking” and “batten down the hatches” attitude was stifling the economy.
The hairshirt Budget Finance Minister Donohoe will unveil at lunchtime will see:
- NO pension hikes
- NO welfare increases, and
- NO tax cuts for the vast majority.
It comes on top of record bumper corporation tax receipts of between €5billion and €10billion over the past couple of years.
But it comes against the background of massive overruns on capital infrastructure projects the Government just can’t seem to manage.
The two prime examples are the National Children’s Hospital and the National Broadband Plan, which between them could cost as much as €3billion more than their original budgets over the coming decades.
We will be hit with an immediate overrun of €200million for them next year alone.
