Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

With regard to private health insurance, the VHI was established 51 years ago, when I was not around, because it was felt there were people who would make a contribution towards the cost of their own health care. It is a policy I support. Regardless of whether we had a universal system of health insurance, and no such system has been introduced since the Second World War in any European country, there will always be people who will buy more — I have no doubt about that.

We must be pragmatic. We have a mixed system. When I am sometimes asked to explain it to ministerial colleagues in Europe, they are often confused about how one can have private health insurance which gives one service in a public hospital. It is rather confusing but it is a different system. We have to be pragmatic in the way in which we use taxpayers' money to procure treatments.

The purpose of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which now has a budget of just over €100 million, is to use the spare capacity in the private sector to buy treatments for patients. I accept it is restricted to those treatments that are procedure-based, although they have done some fantastic work in regard to some outpatient appointments. We must continue to use whatever mechanisms and innovation we can to access treatment for patients. In my experience, the patients do not care how it is funded. What they care about is the quality of the treatment.

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