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

Does the Tánaiste accept that, after three years, we now have a situation where the Minister for Health has been completely isolated in government? The Minister for Finance, by his policies, consistently undermines the basic principle of universal health insurance, which is a dynamic private health insurance market where people can afford insurance. Every policy the Minister for Finance has introduced in this House has undermined that basic principle, including the capping of tax relief on insurance premiums and now a further threat to remove tax relief altogether from hard-pressed families.

The Government is talking about a universal health insurance model whereby health insurance companies will be the ones who will fund the system through people taking out health insurance. By any stretch of the imagination and looking at it coldly and clinically, the Government is undermining that basic principle, day in, day out, by the policies it has pursued for the past three years. When will the White Paper be published and will it have detail and costings? The public want to know whether the Minister, Deputy Howlin, is scaremongering or telling the truth with regard to a cost of €1,600 per person for universal health insurance.

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