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

Either criminal negligence or utter incompetence on the part of the Government was the cause of the problem we have to deal with. That Government was supposed to be in charge of the situation; the banks will be dealt with in due course.

The bottom line is that we have an opportunity now to do something real to address the ever-escalating cost of private insurance - why we pay what we pay for particular procedures, why we pay per day instead of per procedure and why we do not have proper audit or clinical audit. If we address those matters, we can get real value for customers again and minimise increases into the future.

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