Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

This relates to that decision. These tax credits offset the increasing charges from private health insurers as a person gets older. This goes back to risk equalisation where the older were treated as being the same risk as younger people. When that was thrown out by the Supreme Court, we went back to a risk rated insurance system where the premium increases as a person gets older. That is where the tax credits come in.

At the time, the Minister for Health and Children stated this would be a holding mechanism until she got the opportunity to get the legislation right to bring back community rating and risk equalisation. To see this arise again means either there is a problem with the legislation or we are getting lazy and will re-use this mechanism every year.