Mr. Dónal Clancy:

I thank the Chairman and joint committee for giving us this opportunity. At the outset, I wish to introduce my colleague, David Muiry, who is head of global health for Swiss Re and a member of the board of Elips Insurance Limited, which is the underwriter of Laya Healthcare. I thought it was important to put this in an international context and that it would be interesting to hear about universal health insurance from a broader perspective than the national perspective because obviously this is something to which we aspire in Ireland, rather than have at present. The themes that have come up appear to be along the same lines we were speaking about and funnily enough, thus far all the insurers have been in agreement on a couple of matters. One is the current market is becoming unaffordable and that young and healthier people are being driven out of the market. The more of those young and healthier people who leave the market, the more complex it gets and the more costly it gets for the older. Thereafter, one is talking about an unsustainable market after some time. The drivers of this trend are known and include a substantial levy, by which I mean the net impact in respect of both age related tax relief and the levy to pick up on an earlier point. In addition, the claims charges and what is happening with the claims costs in Ireland must be addressed. One other factor which has not been emphasised sufficiently today is that the consumers themselves are in a recession. People in Ireland today are suffering, although in my view the perception is a lot worse then the reality, but it drives-----