Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I know there is competition among insurance companies but if there is no competition among the health care providers and if the authority considers it has no role in that, insurance will continue to increase. It is an issue which needs to be dealt with. I saw this in one area where there was one dominant player which did everything possible to ensure no competition was introduced. It was ridiculous that the Minister and everybody seemed powerless to deal with the issue. A health care provider was offering to provide health care at a lower cost than the dominant player. Unless we have competition among health care providers, we cannot have competition among health insurers. It is as simple as that.