Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I reaffirm what our health spokesperson has said. Fine Gael supports community rating and the necessity for risk equalisation to support it. Nobody wants to see elderly people being priced out of the private health insurance market. I believe we support what the Minister is aiming to do with this legislation. BUPA is leaving the market and fair-minded people believe that it should be required to pay what it owes under risk equalisation. There is no problem with that issue.

The Quinn insurance group has taken over the BUPA client base, and there is concern about the loophole it aims to take advantage of by not paying risk equalisation payments for three years. I can understand why the Minister would try to close that loophole and we do not have a problem with that principle. The problem is that the strategy the Minister is using to do that has consequences for the health insurance market moving forward. Essentially, it signals there will be no incentive for a company outside Ireland to consider entering the Irish health insurance market and offering a service at a fair price. If an outside company were contemplating entering the Irish market and noted that the VHI and VIVAS, if Quinn Direct decides to leave the market after this decision, are the only operators in it, it could see no financial sense in entering a marketplace with no incentive or no competitive advantage to allow it to settle into that marketplace, which was the reasoning behind the risk equalisation payment exemption for three years. This is an extraordinary decision. The Minister is admitting that we will not invite or encourage any new entrants into the Irish health insurance market, which is a step backward as regards competition in this sector.

Was it not possible for the Minister to consider specifically targeting the Quinn Direct group and the loophole it plans to take advantage of by, for example, aiming to ensure that the incentive of not having to pay risk equalisation payments for three years would not exist for companies taking over an existing client base? Would that not have solved the problem? Why have we got to go the whole hog and ensure that nobody considering entering the Irish market can have the incentive of being exempt for the first three years from risk equalisation payments? This clearly worked in the past in terms of encouraging BUPA to enter the marketplace, but that incentive was not over the top as not too many others have sought to enter the Irish marketplace. Why was that not possible?

I do not believe the Fine Gael Party has a problem with what the Minister is trying to do in this emergency legislation, but we have a big problem with the unforeseen consequences or the by-product of it, which is to remove the incentive to attract new entrants into the Irish health insurance market which could provide more competition and more choice for consumers. That is the problem. That is the reason Fine Gael will oppose this Bill.

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