Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot give as clear a reply as I would like because some of these issues are still being worked out. I can say that the cross-Border directive ceases to apply to Northern Ireland and Great Britain when those areas leave the European Union on 1 January. It will continue to apply for people travelling to other parts of the European Union, but we are trying to put alternative arrangements in place to maintain the status quo when it comes to cross-border healthcare. Existing arrangements which see people, for example, in Donegal using Altnagelvin Hospital for cancer or cardiology services and people from Northern Ireland using Dublin hospitals for cardiothoracic surgery, will all remain in place.

We will provide a scheme for residents of Northern Ireland which will be the same as the European Health Insurance Card, EHIC, scheme. People living in Britain will no longer be eligible for EHIC, which is the new version of the old E111 form, but residents of Northern Ireland will still have it and we will fund that from the Irish Exchequer. It seems that under the common travel area, CTA, arrangements that Irish citizens in Northern Ireland and Britain, and vice versa, will continue to be able to avail of each other's health services, but that might not apply to people resident in one jurisdiction travelling to a private hospital in the other jurisdiction. I think that is the question which the Deputy is asking and that has not been worked out yet I am afraid.

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