Seanad debates

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage

 

2:15 pm

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that in Tallaght over the course of the next year, when the Minister of State is out and about in his constituency and the greater Dublin region, he will meet many people who have been hit with very sizable increases in private health insurance. Many of them are aged 50 years or older and they do not necessarily have the ability to move providers. The Government will now push many younger people who are struggling to pay mortgages and other debts out of the private health insurance market. That is just one aspect and there is also the issue of what the Government is doing in charging private patients €800 per night for the use of a public bed, which will also help to destroy the private health insurance industry. Perhaps this is the Government's move towards universal health care in that nobody will be able to avail of it. This measure is regressive and very regrettable and may be an unintended consequence of the Minister's actions. Perhaps he did not realise that his actions would have such a massive effect, but there is a detrimental consequence for individuals.

The Government is effectively ensuring there is no point in people saving any more or putting money on deposit. The deposit interest retention tax, DIRT, rate is 41% and the exit tax on insurance policies and savings bonds has been increased further. That means that there is no point in saving or having private health insurance. There is also very little point in having a pension. I debated the issue directly with the Minister of State when the Government introduced the private pension levy of 0.6% and argued that the Government was putting its hands in pension pots. This affected people who were paying into pension funds or existing pensioners who were paying into underfunded schemes and the Government expects these schemes to make cash payments to the Exchequer. The Fine Gael and Labour Party Government promised last year that this would be the last year of the pension levy.

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