Sinn Féin's Kerry North TD, Mr Martin Ferris, was "politically naïve" to hold on to a medical card after his election to the Dáil in May, a senior party spokeswoman conceded last night.
The Southern Health Board has confirmed Mr Ferris's declaration that he was entitled to the card and he would remain entitled to it until May 2005 - even though he now earns €72,000 a year plus expenses.
However, Mr Ferris, who spent 10 years in jail for attempting to smuggle in weaponry for the IRA, has now decided to join the VHI scheme. "When I came out of prison, I had not worked in 10 years and had no income and so I was entitled to a medical card, " he said, in response to the report first carried in the Sunday World.
The information emerged after the Sunday World submitted a Freedom of Information request.
Under a 1996 back-to-work scheme, the long-term unemployed are entitled to retain medical cards for three years after they get a job.
A Sinn Féin spokeswoman told The Irish Times: "Maybe there has been a misjudgment here on his own part, but there is no doubt that he was entitled to it. He wasn't cheating, but it was possibly politically naïve for him not to realise that it would come out."
Mr Ferris worked full-time for Sinn Féin in Kerry North for several years before the general election, but the party insists that he was not financially supported by it during that time.
Describing the Sunday World's reporting as "mischievous and inaccurate", a Sinn Féin statement said Mr Ferris, who suffers from severe asthma, would never have "abused" the card.
