Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo and support the comments of Deputy Denis Naughten on the need for much more medium and long-term planning in terms of economic and financial planning. I also made this point on budget day. The idea that we come in here every single year to debate measures that have been already determined and decided by the economic management council, agreed by our partners in the European Union, without any debate in the parliament is not acceptable. I know the Minister is committed to a much more transparent and representative process for formulating budgets and I hope he will honour that commitment before the end of the lifetime of the Government.

An issue I wish to focus on in the Finance Bill is the removal of tax relief for more than 500,000 health insurance policyholders. That is the Department of Finance estimate but the industry estimate is much greater. While this provision was introduced via resolution on budget night it will be made permanent by section 8 of the Finance Bill. While it is recognised that savings have to be made in every Department - nobody disputes that - this decision makes no sense either from an economic point of view or from a social policy point of view. When we formulate a budget its purpose is to set out social policy and economic policy priorities. It is not simply to wield the axe and introduce a series of blunt instrument measures.

After the budget announcement took place I joined the Joint Committee on Health and Children. Of course I am not a member of that committee because I am not allowed to join any committees nor are any of my colleagues on the benches beside me. I participated in that committee and I took the opportunity to ask the Minister for Health whether there had been any consultation between himself and the Minister for Finance on the tax relief change. He said it was a matter for the Minister for Finance and not for him as Minister for Health. That is not credible for a number of reasons. It is not credible, first, that the Minister for Finance would introduce such a measure without consulting the Minister for Health - I do not believe the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, would have done that - and, second, that the Minister for Health is not concerned that the measure will directly damage the programme for Government policy of rolling out universal health insurance.

The reality is that 45% of the people have health insurance and 47% have medical cards or general practitioner cards. There are just 360,000 people, that is the official figure, who have neither health insurance nor a medical or a free general practitioner card. This pool of people is growing rapidly and is suffering most. Through separate measures the Government is seeking the removal of medical cards to make savings of €160 million and at the same time indirectly causing an increase in people's health insurance premiums through the change in tax relief which further pushes people off both insurance and medical cards. We are increasing the cohort in the middle. One would have to question the logic or the vision behind this measure at a time when we are supposed to be moving towards a universal health insurance. It is a contradiction in terms. Once people realise how expensive their premiums will be as a result of this change, many will simply dump their policies and join the back of the queue in the over-burdened public health system. Since 2008, approximately 240,000 have opted out of private health insurance. That figure is growing. That means those additional people are obliged to further burden their public health system and the measure contained in the Bill will simply add to an overwhelming burden on the public health system at a time when resources are limited and are being cut back which, quite frankly, is madness.

In the US, which is currently implementing a very controversial universal health insurance plan, the law provided for tax credits for 17 million people to encourage them to take up private health insurance at a time when we are actively discouraging people and forcing them out of the private health insurance market. It simply does not make sense. As far as I am aware, there has not been an impact assessment of this decision and I urge the Minister to reconsider it and, perhaps, discuss it with the Minister for Health.

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