Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

That is not to take from the fact that hundreds of thousands of people opt to pay health insurance to various companies so that they can access private care. There is nothing wrong with that.

Some 1.3 million people have medical cards and 60,000 people have doctor-only cards. I congratulate the parties opposite for at last seeing the wisdom behind our decision to introduce doctor-only cards. The Opposition berated me last year and stated that such cards are worse than useless.

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