Alex White (Labour)

I second Senator Frances Fitzgerald's amendment to the Order of Business. We need to have a debate on the medical card for the over-70s issue today. Senator Joe O'Toole is correct that everyone in the country is talking about these issues while we seem to be the only body that is not, apart from the opportunity to raise it on the Order of Business. We should amend the Order of Business to allow a debate with the Minister for Health and Children on this issue today.

There is nothing short of chaos in the entire budgetary process. Senator O'Toole is correct about people's lack of confidence in the Government. Yesterday I made the point, which a Member on the opposite side queried, that people do not believe what they are being told. That is a very serious matter for a government. It is one thing to disagree with a government but another not to believe it. There is a credibility gap with the figures behind yesterday's reversal and many other issues. The Government needs to engage seriously with the people, giving them the information and clarity they require and deserve.

Over the summer holidays, the Supreme Court brought in a serious judgment which involved criticism of the Legislature in respect of the health insurance scheme and BUPA. I am very critical of the ideology espoused by the Minister for Health and Children regarding the health services. This is one area, however, in which I agree with her. I support her position in the BUPA case in which she argued to the Supreme Court that the important principle of risk equalisation was a fundamental prerequisite for the effective operation of community rating. In other words, it is to share the cost of health care across the board and to charge younger and healthier people a disproportionate cost for health insurance to support those who are older and more in need of services.

It is a very noble communitarian principle which I would extend. The entire community, in particular those well able to pay more for health services, should be called upon to pay their fair share for a truly universal system of health care.