Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I wish to record my support for Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment, which draws particular attention to the potential outworking of this section of the new Bill. We must remind ourselves that this is in the realm of additional functions of the board. Section 7 states clearly that in addition to the functions conferred on it by the Voluntary Health Insurance Acts 1957 to 1998, the board may — and this is the specific area that Deputy O'Sullivan seeks to address — acquire, manage, operate and maintain medical facilities. The amendment seeks to exclude facilities that are co-located on the premises of public hospitals. I absolutely agree.

It is extremely worrying that the Bill is open to the interpretation that the VHI could seek to sponsor private for-profit facilities co-located on public hospital sites. This is an outrageous proposition, particularly given that many of the people who contribute to the VHI scheme are doing so due to enforcement and out of real fear and concern about what might happen to them and their loved ones in the event that the need for acute hospitalisation would present within their families. This is as a result of the under-resourcing of the public acute hospital system, the network of hospitals and the services they provide within the public system. That the perpetuation of the two-tier system is now to be compounded by the idea that the VHI could utilise its position to add insult to injury by being a party to a private, for-profit co-located facility is absolutely unacceptable.

It is worrying that this could be a subtext to what is being presented in the text of this section of the new Bill. I appeal to my constituency colleague, Deputy Brendan Smith, to take on board the concerns already expressed by the mover of the amendment and Deputy Charles Flanagan and to recognise that the Opposition is of one voice in this instance. We are asking the Minister of State to accept the amendment in Deputy O'Sullivan's name and to recognise that it reflects accurately the thinking of the overwhelming body of people out there who will be noting this particular element of Report Stage of the Voluntary Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2007. I appeal to the Minister to accede to the amendment and to recognise that this section of the Bill, if it proceeds without amendment, leaves open the possibility that the board of the VHI could capitalise on an already intolerable situation in which our public hospital system is being undermined by the piggybacking of private, for-profit moguls.

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