James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This problem faced the Deputy and his Government for 14 years, during which time we saw year-on-year rises of up to 25%, so for the Deputy to come across, after two years, as concerned and wanting action on it is a little rich.

That is not the way his Government left the country. It was left in poverty and in tatters. His Government destroyed our financial sovereignty. It accounts for much of the reason why so many people are unemployed or cannot afford private insurance. Mr. McCarthy is right. Insurance will become unaffordable unless insurers take the issue of cost containment seriously. Why are we still paying for procedures on the basis that they take two hours when they only take 20 minutes with modern technology? Why are people still reporting to me that their bills listed procedures that were not carried out? Where is the audit and why is there no clinical audit by a group of doctors who could challenge the treating clinicians on the necessity of tests? Why are we still paying on a per diembasis instead of per procedure? That is what we have offered insurers and it is what we would like to see them do in private hospitals.

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