Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

In the context of preparing for the budget, has the Minister taken the opportunity to look at comparative costs for public services in other countries? For example, one can visit a doctor in France and expect to pay €20 or €30 and proportionate amounts, perhaps, €70 or €80 to visit a consultant, whereas in Ireland the cost of a visit to a doctor, unless one has a medical card, would be at least 100% higher and in the case of a visit to a consultant probably 500% higher. The Government along with the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has been encouraging an aggressive introduction of private for-profit medicine into the Irish health sector. We have had a private health sector for a long time but it was largely not-for-profit, religiously-based involving various denominations.

Will the Minister agree that the private for-profit health sector in Ireland is charging what the market will bear? The costs that are being charged for private health services in Ireland are almost at the top end of the range in terms of the European Union, often with dramatically less quality, as is clear from the very sad inquests we have read recently, than the comparative European standard of delivery. This is where the Minister's take on competitiveness and costs comes into play. I wish the Minister well in his job but how does he propose to get his Department to analyse and deal with this type of inflation which happens all the time in regard to costs in Ireland?

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