Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The proposal the Deputy is making has a lot of merit and it is what is done in Australia, for example. However, it is obviously not necessary that we do it now because nobody has been paying the loading for a year, never mind ten years. I would like to review the Act in 2017, when it has been proposed to do that.

There are quite a number of reasons people are taking out health insurance, including a recovering economy at long last, increasing employment and increasing income, as well as the young adult discounts and the fact lifetime community rating is now in place. At the same time, I have no doubt what the Deputy says is true, namely, long waiting times are one of the things that encourage or drive people to take out health insurance. However, so long as we have those issues - we have had them for quite some time, for lots of reasons, particularly the capacity of our public health service - it is important we regulate health insurance to ensure that those who are older and those who have illnesses are not discriminated against.