Sinn Féin offers free prescriptions for everyone if elected to government – The Irish Times

Sinn Fein will promise to phase out fees for prescription drugs general election If he is elected to the government, he will prepare a manifesto and pass legislation for this step within the first 100 days.

The party will launch its new campaign this week healthcare The policy is trying to regain momentum after a series of scandals and controversies that marked the party’s pre-election race.

The plan has a net cost of €4.3 billion, on top of the existing health budget, and will increase spending in the region to €30 billion annually, with a further €15 billion promised for capital projects over a five-year period.

The centerpiece of this expanded spending is €1 billion to reduce the cost of healthcare through the above measures and €350 million to pay for the universal elimination of prescription charges.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane Additionally, for five years the government will promise to extend full health cards to everyone on average incomes, abolish prescription charges for healthcare workers and introduce a new public GP contract for family doctors who want to work directly for the government. SELECT.

Mr Cullinane said GP-only health cards would not be expanded beyond the current level due to the pressures such a move would place on GPs.

It will also promise the implementation of the Health for All Act, which envisages a gradual expansion of powers and commits the State to full public health coverage by 2035.

As well as reducing maximum monthly prescription costs under the Medicines Payment Scheme from €80 to zero within five years, the party is also promising a universal pharmacy scheme for women, including HRT and contraception, and the abolition of hospital car parking charges.

Despite a series of controversies that scuppered Sinn Féin’s vote, Mr Cullinane defended how the party leader ran the election. Michael McMonagle, Brian Stanley And Niall and Donnghaile cases are being discussed Mary Lou McDonald He said he remained committed to a “robust process” and that Sinn Féin was “dealing with all these issues to the best of our ability, in the best of faith”.

Mr Cullinane said Ms McDonald was “not trying to mislead people” by making an impassioned statement that showed the party supported the resignation of the then Seanad leader, Mr Ó Donnghaile. for inappropriately texting a teenager. Ms McDonald was forced to explain the Dáil record last week about the age of the person involved.

He said some of the comments about the party leader were “deeply unfair”.

Mr Cullinane said he accepted that votes for the party had been rejected and that he had failed to see the party’s core message on issues such as health and wellness. housing land with voters ahead of the campaign, as in the middle term of the current Dáil term.

He rejected the suggestion that this was a failure on Sinn Féin’s part.

“I don’t accept that we failed, nor do I accept that we couldn’t put forward an alternative,” he said.

“For whatever reason, people haven’t heard of it. For whatever reason, people don’t respond to this. And this is the truth. “But we have a three-week campaign where people will be focused on the election.”

He said the party felt a “heavy responsibility” to perform well. He renewed his attacks on the Government and its health policy, which he described as “normalizing failure”, claiming that he would be minister of health reform and would provide a combination of financing services and reform.

Mr Cullinane acknowledged that investment and policy changes in health were increasing, but the Minister for Health said Stephen Donnelly waiting lists, scoliosis crises and cars in the wards would have to be “accounted for”. University Hospital Limerickand shortcomings sanity and disability services.

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