Dr. Sara Burke:

It is very expensive and that is not caught in the figure of €580 million.

How would I explain how 45% of the population has private health insurance when it only contributes 9% of the cost? It is because private health insurance in Ireland largely insures someone for inpatient or day case elective hospital care. It does not cover most other bits. It does not cover outpatient care generally, outpatient appointments with specialists in the first place, the cost of drugs and most primary care payments. In effect, it is inpatient hospital insurance that people are scared into taking out because it gets them faster access. It can be seen from the figures that it is very bad value for money because it does not cover the cost. This shows that the public system is subsidising the private system because 45% of the population has private health insurance but the majority of the expense of health care is not paid for by private health insurers.