Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

This measure is another indication of the Government's failure. It has failed to deliver a consultants' contract, the Minister for Health and Children has spent the past month demonising nurses and, following the terrible recent tragedy in County Wexford, members of the Garda are expected to double as social workers at weekends. Neither the Minister nor the Minister of State has an understanding of the crisis in the mental health services. I am surprised the Minister of State has not issued a statement on this matter. One cannot expect general practitioners and ambulance drivers to do the job of a senior social worker and one would never contemplate not making an ambulance or a GP available. The Government, through its failure to resource the Health Service Executive properly, contributed to what happened in County Wexford.

The private insurance patient is being told to vote for Fianna Fáil or the Progressive Democrats. This is another opportunity to give patients a harsh dose of PD medicine. It is clear from the Minister's press statement that the purpose of this measure is to privatise the VHI. It has nothing to do with mutualisation. That is a red herring intended to win over the VHI's 1.2 million subscribers. Mr. Seán Quinn places a value of €1 billion on the VHI. The company is owned by the State. If its status is changed, will it be loaded with a loan of €1 billion? How will the mutualised VHI raise a loan of €100 million so that its reserves can reach the percentage point expected by law when its derogation is removed within 18 months? How will the VHI repay that loan? The changes made by the Government to risk equalisation mean that the company's income will decrease. It will be necessary to raise private health insurance premiums, but the Government does not have the honesty to admit that people who have private health insurance are getting a raw deal. The Government does not know what it is doing.

Fine Gael accepts the need to change risk equalisation because competition and community rating are sacrosanct. The Government has done a U-turn from the nonsense it spouted when BUPA left the Irish market. It is now responding to some of the issues which drove BUPA out of the market. At that time the Government insisted that risk equalisation was perfect, did not need to be altered and would remain. It now admits that problems attach to risk equalisation as it is applied in Ireland. A measure such as this should not be taken on the eve of the fall of a Government. It should be properly discussed.

Not only is the Government falling behind with regard to risk equalisation, it is also altering community rating. Four months ago the Government promised that it would never change community rating. It was supposed to be sacrosanct. Now it is to be changed. I can understand and accept that younger people should pay lower premiums. However, the introduction of a yellow pack plan with community rating will mean that those who buy other plans, which will not have community rating, will be ripped off. Speaking on radio this morning, the Minister claimed she is looking after the interests of the ordinary patient. This is not the case. The ordinary patient will get the rawest deal of all.

The Minister of State claims to be pro-consumer. Nothing in this scheme is pro-consumer. The Minister, in her press statement, promised that the Health Insurance Authority will "initiate a process of consultation with the health insurance industry and private health care providers on defining the level of health insurance which should be subject to community rating". Her press statement contains no reference to consumer representation. The Government has no intention of including consumers in the choices to be made on their behalf by the Government and the private health insurance market, whose motivation is totally different from that of consumers.

The recent report by the Barrington group on the health insurance market acknowledges some uncertainty about private health insurance among policy makers. The report says politicians and civil servants have concerns about it. The group found this uncertainty particularly surprising in the context of the Government's strong support for the development of private hospitals. The report goes on to refer to universal health insurance and other changes in the private health insurance market.

Deputies are allowed only five minutes to discuss this important matter. The Government is deceiving private health insurance patients. Their premiums will be increased and will increase even futher in the next couple of years. The Government will not engage in a proper debate with those private patients. It will rip them off as it has ripped off everyone else. The Government will get its warning in a few weeks time.

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