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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the private health insurance in general and address this Bill too.

It is hard to believe the Minister is in here, sponsoring this Bill, in view of all he has said about the viability of the health insurance market, the fact that it is contracting rapidly and the fact that what underpins intergenerational solidarity and supports community rating and risk equalisation is a flow of young people into the health insurance market. What we have had over the last few years is an outflow of young people dropping their health insurance or downgrading their policies. That clearly is not a sustainable position to maintain. Everything he has done in recent times goes contrary to the central tenet of his policy, which is to provide a vibrant, competitive private health insurance market to underpin his universal health insurance aspirations. The Bill undermines all of this.

The only people who have any consistency in the area of intergenerational solidarity and risk equalisation are those in my party. We supported risk equalisation and introduced it from the start, to virulent personal opposition from the Minister, given what he said, and to opposition from his party.

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