Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have. I will outline them in good time.

However, the Minister is being hoodwinked to a certain extent. I give this advice. It is not in the private health insurers' interests to keep down the cost of private health insurance to families because they know that the Government, if it continues with its universal health insurance policy, will row in at some stage and pick up the slack. That is the problem the Government will face in time to come. Certainly the Government should publish the White Paper on universal health insurance and do so quickly because we will be discussing private health insurance when we will have no more private health insurance that will be affordable to ordinary families. Those policies need to be assessed very quickly.

Between 2007 and 2013, the cost of private health insurance for the average family almost doubled, which is not sustainable in the present climate. It will do nothing to help underpin the Government's stated policy of universal health insurance. I know there are divergent views in the Government as to whether universal health insurance will follow a social insurance model or whether the private insurers will decide the element of care to be provided.

Many speakers made reference to older people and the fair deal. We can look at page 44 of this fictional piece of work on funding of our health services. It is stated in the opening that this will not sustain the level of service required for 2014. I am not making this up. The director general of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, stated this emphatically. The Cabinet had an exchange of views with regard to sanitising the truth behind the publication of the HSE national service plan. There were also other changes in the plan. A blunt statement in the introduction to the plan, signed by Mr. O'Brien, declared that the level of investment required to meet many of the critical service priorities cannot be met.

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