It's emerged that a debt collection company has written to a two-year-old child demanding €100, after an emergency visit to a local hospital.

The child, from County Roscommon, couldn't get a visit from the local doctor-on-call service, Westdoc - leading their worried parents to bring them to the emergency department in Portiuncula.

But because the child did not present a referral letter from a GP, the hospital asked the child to pay the €100 charge - and then used a debt collection agency to try and recoup the money.

The collection letters were addressed to the 2-year-old, whose family insist they do not have the money to pay it.

The case was raised in the Seanad today where junior health minister Helen McEntee confirmed the case had "been resolved favourably".

But local Fianna Fáil senator Terry Leyden said the fee should be waived from the beginning: