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

I thank the Deputy for her question because it is an area very much to the core of what the Government is doing in health insurance. There are three legs to this stool, namely the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, HSE, and the private health insurers. The Deputy is correct that there is a much greater proportion of older people in the VHI. For example, Laya Healthcare has 22% of the market but only 8% of those over 70 and 80.

We have introduced the risk equalisation scheme.

See this speech in context