Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

There is no actuarial advice in the Department of Finance. The HIA is a regulator and will be part of the financial regulatory environment. It is financed by the industry and will have a role in the regulation of health insurers and a further role in assessing the effect of the tax credit and reporting to me. I then have to assess if I am to advise the Minister for Finance if tax credits should be altered and the Government must consider that in a budgetary context.

If necessary I must have a lot of advice. We were in court on a number of occasions on risk equalisation and had to bring in expertise from outside the State. We were up against huge expertise from the different interests. The Deputy is being unreasonable, we do not get outside expertise for the sake of it, we have greatly reduced the amount of money spent on consultancies in the Department and the HSE. This, however, is an area where it is necessary.

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