Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That would be useful. I am glad I asked because I do not believe we should pass legislation without either seeing the report on which it is based or being certain that the levies and the distribution of credits are all being passed on. Is it guaranteed that they will all be passed on to where they should be in terms of equalising the cost of insurance and not into the back pockets of certain health insurance companies? Does the legislation ensure that is the case and that there is accountability for the disbursement of the levy credits?

That is an aside to my fundamental point. We will not oppose the Bill because it is trying to equalise a fundamentally unequal system. However, I object in the strongest terms to the fact that this Government has propped up the private health insurance industry, touted on its behalf and exacerbated people's fears and anxieties about having or not having private health insurance and also the concerns that arise from our abysmal failure to fund and resource the public health system properly, which is what should be resourced in order to ensure that there is genuine equality, not risk equalisation, in access to health care. All citizens deserve that as a right because they are human beings, not because they are players in the so-called market.

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