Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to outline the alarming increase in the cost of private health insurance. Many people speak about "middle Ireland" and how hard-pressed it is. An illustration of how serious the situation is for many families is that people are now deciding whether they should fill the oil tank or continue with health cover. We have seen an alarming increase in the cost of premium payments for private health insurance. The cost of VHI cover for a family with two children has increased to €2,300 per year. There has been an alarming increase in recent years. Since 2009, health premia have increased by a minimum of 100% and, in some cases, by as much as 130%.

Year on year there have been exceptional increases.

We have to address this issue. These people are lightening the State's burden in the provision of health care. They have contributed through the general Exchequer in taxation and through sacrifice and effort have taken out private health insurance to provide cover for themselves and their families. They are being crucified. If we allow this to continue, the advances the Government is trying to make in regard to universal health insurance will unravel before the Minister's eyes. People simply cannot afford to continue to pay these alarming increases. Consultants' pay is one issue on which the Government has been faffing about for a long time. There is also the issue of charging private patients for public beds, which has placed and will continue to place a burden on premium holders throughout the country. The €125 million the insurers decided to give upfront in order to dig the Minister for Health out of a hole in regard to his budget deficit is now coming back to haunt us. It is not the health insurers who are paying upfront; rather, it is premium holders throughout the country. That is not good enough.

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