David Norris (Independent)

I also welcome the Minister. She is a doughty fighter. She took on a very difficult job. I am not sure it was not a kamikaze mission but she did it honourably. Although I will support these measures, I do so faute de mieux.

This is a disgusting debate and I am a little shocked that not one contributor so far has mentioned the patients. We have heard about the market, entering the field and the functioning of hospitals but we have not heard a word about the patients. That is what interests me. In a three page, double spaced speech the Minister mentioned the word "market" eight times, "competition" and all that sort of rubbish.

I am glad Senator Ryan raised the question of competition. I have been hammering on about that for the past year and I am getting increasingly sick of competition being made a little tin god and the automatic assumption that it delivers for the consumer. It is clear that it does not always deliver. It is clear from what happened with the groceries order.

I ran the Hirschfeld Community Centre. I was the only person who put my own money into it but then a couple of fly-by-nights opened up. They have now become extremely wealthy people but they did not serve the community very well. They put us to the pin of our collar and then buggered off whenever it suited them, not having paid their tax bills, and we were left in a situation where we did not have the resources to put into the community that we otherwise would have had. I start, therefore, from a patient focused point of view and I am not impressed by the market. It is essential that every citizen of this State have access to health care and it is an obscenity that they do not. That is the result of the Minister's market and the sooner we stop this nonsense, the better.

I realise the Minister has a very busy life but perhaps she saw one or two of the "Prime Time" programmes, one of which concerned a woman in County Kilkenny who did not join the VHI, partly because of principle and partly for penury reasons. She believed in a State system. She got a cancer test but the results were delayed. It took six months to get the results, by which time the cancer was untreatable. That woman was effectively sentenced to death by the market that all Members praise. That is revolting. Why should a citizen be sentenced to death because of poverty? The State already has some responsibility for the poverty in which these people live but to deny them treatment is wrong, and it goes on and on.

Another programme concerned a very decent, hard working doctor who ran a clinic in Naas, County Kildare. He had the same story to tell. A patient of his had died because she was in the public service, not in the VHI. I would like the VHI to come in fully under Government and become a real national institution strongly supported by the State. Health care should be nationalised. I am not in favour of the market. It is disgusting that people talk about markets when we are talking about people's health and the right to life. We should ensure we provide adequate health care for every citizen of this State and we are not doing it. We should fully invest in the VHI. There will be flabbiness, as Senator Hayes mentioned, but that is the case in the private system as well. A fully capitalised, funded and supported health service for all that delivers to the people is what I want.

I support this measure because it provides risk equalisation. The Minister was courageous in fighting this battle, and more power to her, but she is fighting it in the wrong context. The market may be all right for groceries, sweets and so on, although I am not sure that is the case, or for betting and gambling, but people's health is the fundamental concern.

Let us not forget the way BUPA behaved. It scarpered but the Minister dealt with that well. She pointed out that in similar circumstances in Australia — I heard it on the radio — it managed to make a profit but it was not big enough. That is the problem. It is too greedy. I want a proper national health service that delivers for all our citizens.

I support the motion faute de mieux. I hope the Minister and I are both re-elected and that we can go hammer and tongs on this issue because it is ideological. The Minister is a voter and I might alienate her in my constituency but I do not give a damn because I feel strongly on this issue. I hope we will have an opportunity to have it out again and again.