Paddy Craddock remembers the good times, and he remembers the tough times. He remembers searching for branches from trees in a wood near his home to use as fuel during the war years, and he remembers taking any overtime he could get his hands on to help provide for his wife and seven children.

Over the 50 odd years of his working life, the 73-year-old Dubliner has paid the equivalent of at least €400,000 in taxes, although he is the first to admit that calculating the true figure is an inexact science.

A lifelong Fianna Fáil supporter, he heard of last week's announcement that over 70s are to lose their automatic entitlement to the medical card. And still, he remembers.

He recalls the sense of relief, nay entitlement, which he and his wife Patricia – a lifelong housewife – felt when the move was introduced.

"It's a great thing to have the medical card," he says.

"You've security, I suppose. You know that if anything happens, it's only a matter of going down to the doctor and he'll look after you."

Having left school at the age of 14, and worked ever since, Paddy Craddock is still working. Today, it is his job as a school "lollipop man" in Blackrock which he fears may push him over the earnings threshold for entitlement to a full medical card.

He spent the majority of his working life as a flooring fitter, rising to foreman in a company which has long since disappeared.

Before that, he was a trainee gardener, deciding on the flip of a coin to join a colleague in the flooring business when he was in his early 20s.

He recalls those years with striking optimism. It was a time when everyone pulled together. For those who were lucky enough to have a job, you just got on with it, he says.

He is unable to put an exact figure on what he paid in taxes over the years. But all of his life he was an employee, and any earnings including overtime went through the payroll.

He paid tax throughout the post-war years, as well the tough times of the '70s and '80s.

His last job, as an employee with the ice-cream manufacturer HB, pulled in about £600 a week (or £31,000 a year) when he officially retired at the turn of century.

He says he would have earned a similar basic wage – or its equivalent – during many of his 35 or so years as a flooring fitter.

If we base it on his tax rates for the
year 2000, he would have paid the equivalent of well over €400,000 over the 45 years when he was employed in these types of roles.

Obviously, this does not include the many thousands of hours of overtime payments he earned or the different rates of income tax – some of them higher than in 2000 – throughout those years.

It also does not take into account the years when he would have been on a more junior wage, and the allowances and supports he would have received as a father of seven children.

But it gives some indication of the financial contribution made by men such as Paddy Craddock to the state during his working life.

And yet it is not in his nature to dwell on things.

"I can't ever remember being poor, I can't ever remember looking for extra money. I worked all the time; sometimes you would work until nine at night, and you would also work down the country, and at weekends," he says of his 35 or so years as a flooring fitter.

"I was a workaholic. If the work was there I would never refuse it. I was lucky, I just love working."

"I worked hard all my life, and paid
my taxes as well... Once you're working and you look after yourself, that's a big bonus. Of course, things like educating
the children cost a bit of money, for example buying the school books and
that.

"There were some years where the tax you would be paying was outrageous. The taxes were very, very difficult. No one likes paying taxes, but like I say, I just kept my head down. I was never out sick in my life. The taxes were there and they had to be paid, so there was no point getting worked up about it. If you needed to work extra, then you did.

"People live differently nowadays to then. This idea of three or four foreign holidays a year was out of the question, especially if you had children. They needed the money to run the country, it was different times, and people were happy to have work."

Today, the couple survive on the
state pension they receive as a married couple of 53 years standing, and the
€180 or so a week Craddock earns during school term as a lollipop man outside Blackrock College/ Willow Park school in Blackrock.

A fitness enthusiast, Paddy is due to run his 29th Dublin marathon later this month, and has never drunk or smoked.

"It wouldn't be much use having the pay, if I'm a lollipop man and I get no [full] medical card," he says. "So I'll have to consider that. It's not for the money I do it... I just love it, it gets you out of the house.

"It's a grand extra few bob, but you can't go mad on that. But I may have to forego that to get the full medical card."

He intends to ask his neighbour, the TD Barry Andrews, who somewhat paradoxically is the minister for children, to clarify the whole issue for him.

"I am confused. I know I'm borderline at the moment... It's a nervous time, and I'm not a fellow who worries," he confides.

"I voted Fianna Fáil all my life, but I definitely won't be voting for them again. Not only that, with my own children and grandchildren, I'll be asking them not to vote for them. Because it is not just about us, it's about their grannies and grand-dads, and their mothers and fathers as well."