The Department of Health has said that interest generated by investments in the Government's Special Savings Incentive Accounts (SSIA) will be taken into consideration in determining eligibility for medical cards.
Interest on investment income was generally taken into account in means testing for medical cards and the same criteria would apply in dealing with the SSIA schemes, the Department of Health said.
The announcement has been strongly condemned by the Labour Party which feared the move could see patients losing their medical-card entitlements because the SSIA investment pushed them over the income threshold for qualification.
The five-year SSIA saving schemes are due to mature in 2006 and 2007.
Labour TD Ms Kathleen Lynch said the SSIA scheme had been strongly promoted by the Government and the former minister for finance, Mr McCreevy, had said that even low-income groups stood to benefit.
"It is totally unfair that a savings initiative that was heavily promoted by the Government as a financial bonanza should, in fact, deprive those with the lowest incomes of medical and welfare cover merely for following the Government's advice and opening an SSIA account," Ms Lynch said last night.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said it did not expect that any medical-card patient would be adversely affected by assessing interest generated by the SSIA scheme as part of a means test.
The Department spokesman said health boards could also grant medical cards on a discretionary basis to patients who did not qualify on income grounds.
The Department said capital invested by an individual or the Government's 25 per cent contribution towards the scheme would not be assessed for eligibility for the free GP and drugs scheme.
However, Ms Lynch said last night that health board staff regularly asked applicants for medical cards about their savings.
The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Brennan, has ordered a review of the impact of SSIA savings on welfare benefits.
Sources close to Mr Brennan told The Irish Times last week that the Minister was "sympathetic" to SSIA income being excluded from means tests for benefits.
