Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his questions, some of which I will be happy to try to answer. I will not be able to answer all of them because the overall position will not become clear until the consultation process has been completed.

Labour was the first political party in Ireland to propose universal health insurance - based on multiple insurers - as long ago as 2001. At that stage, the Deputy's party ridiculed the concept in its entirety. Our spur then - as now - was the inequity and inefficiency of Ireland's two-tier health system. The Labour and Fine Gael parties believe that a person's access to medical care should be determined by his or her medical needs, not the money in his or her pocket. Quite frankly, that is the difference between the Deputy's party and the current Government.

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