Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Yes, it has increased to €16 billion, which amounts to 40% of all the tax we will raise this year. To explain some of the reasons health is so expensive in Ireland, TheEconomist article to which I referred notes that doctors are paid 3.7 times the average wage in the United States, 4.2 times the average wage in Britain but seven times the average wage in Ireland. We are all paid much more than our counterparts elsewhere which is the reason money does not go as far here as it does elsewhere.

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