Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with universal health care. How did we get to this position whereby the cost of insurance is increasing? The cost has increased because nobody took on the vested interests, including the consultants. I have paid for health insurance, as has my mother and other members of my family. We have done so because we could and saw it as a civic duty. At many times, we did not receive care better than we would have received in the public system.

There is another form of insurance, however. At many times, consultants would say that because one had voluntary health insurance, one could be kept in hospital for a few days. This meant more money for the consultants. The insurance companies did not take on the professionals and this increased the cost of health insurance.

Another form of insurance was used in public hospitals. I believe in public hospitals. I was in Roscommon hospital a week ago for a hip X-ray. The service I received there is not inferior to the service I would hope to receive in Blackrock Clinic or Galway Clinic, to which I have never been. I believe in public hospitals. In the public hospitals, there was a form of insurance whereby consultants could be paid €500 or €1,000 if one wanted one's mother, father, brother or sister to stay an extra week. This practice was ongoing over the past 30 or 40 years. It was the way business was done in this country and it was wrong. This is why our health insurance system is at a low point. So much cash was going through the system. Anybody who enters my office tells me that this practice occurred. It occurred all over the country. There were patients with voluntary health insurance in respect of whom the consultants were able to charge the VHI. Nobody questioned this. In the public health system, there was another form of insurance, that is, nod-and-wink insurance whereby one paid the consultant or doctor €300 or €400 to keep one's mother or father in hospital. Everybody in the system knew this practice was occurring but nobody was prepared to tackle it. The Minister is now going to make the system open and transparent and, most important, he will ensure that the nod-and-wink insurance system cannot continue.

Risk equalisation in the VHI is very good. It can be blunt but the VHI is charged with catering for a much more elderly cohort than other companies. I pay voluntary health insurance but do not expect to receive treatment any better than that which I would receive in a public hospital. Perhaps that is just my opinion but I believe most people are beginning to examine their health insurance. People are asking how they can get the best cover for the money they pay. As with utility bills, such as those for oil, electricity and telephony, people are examining health insurance bills all the time. I urge people to shop around.

I examine the cost of my insurance. I have an elderly mother of 85 and I pay her insurance. While we have always had private health insurance, perhaps we would be better off using the public system, thereby saving a lot of money. If many hundreds of thousands of people stopped paying for private health insurance, however, the public health system would not be able to cope.

The Minister must take on the vested interests, who have not been taken on for the past 15 to 30 years, or even since the foundation of the State. We had an Irish solution to an Irish problem, thus putting us in our current position.

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