Mr. Jim Dowdall:

I refer to the private health insurance issues that we are discussing.

In the health insurance area, we see all of these traits. There is a clinging adherence to a health insurance levy that has long failed as a policy, a tendency to blame everybody else for rising costs and persistent ignoring of independent advice on the issues. The introduction of stealth taxes to fill a funding hole is a key issue for the sector and for health insurance customers, and there are promises which are quickly forgotten and reversed.

The victims of this approach are ordinary citizens, those who are prepared to invest their hard-earned money in providing themselves with some assurance that, if needed, they will get access to the quality health care they require. Given an affordability challenge which is created by policy, these coping subscribers, in the tens of thousands, have given up health insurance or are just hanging on. As they are being discretely targeted through these hidden stealth taxes and health insurance levies, they do not march on Leinster House. They do not fill Dawson Street or shout slogans or insults. They probably do not even go to the members' clinics. However, they will recognise the impact of these charges when their renewal date comes around. That is when they see the impact of the reduction in health insurance tax relief, the impact of double taxation by now having to pay twice for a public bed in a public ward in a public hospital. That is when over €200 million of increased costs now being imposed on health insurance customers will become real and obvious.

Health insurance customers cannot believe their costs are going up by so much. They shop around, they pay up, they trade down or they give up. Over 0.25 million customers have already given up their health insurance. When these subscribers give up their health insurance, there are three impacts: over 0.25 million fewer, typically younger, persons are in the pool to support older members; over 0.25 million persons go from paying for their treatment to costing the public health system money; and the goal of universal health insurance becomes much more distant.