Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to address the issue of health insurance and the revelation that many people over the age of 60 are paying more than €1,000 more than they ought to be for health cover. The report compiled by TotalHealthCover.ieconcluded that at least two out of every five people are on outdated and overpriced plans. A lady who came to my office was paying nearly €4,000. When she rang the insurance provider to inquire what other health options might be available to her, she was given no guidance and was asked to pick and choose what she would like covered. These policies seem to be deliberately put together in a way to confuse people who cannot understand them. How is anyone meant to pick and choose what ailments they might have in the coming years? Nobody can look into the future. This scaremongering by insurance providers is outrageous. Elderly people are already vulnerable and alone in their homes in many cases.

I am asking - I do not think there are any costs associated with this - that the Minister for Health direct the Insurance Ombudsman to set up a side office to help people navigate and review insurance policies so that the elderly and most vulnerable do not have to shoulder the burden of funding our health service. In the long term, we need to look at a publicly-funded health care model. We already have one of the highest spends per capitaon health care when compared with many of the richest countries. We need to identify efficiencies and implement them. The prospect of health insurance increasing by 50% over the next decade is scandalous. The system needs to change rapidly.

The second issue I wish to raise is an attack on a lawyer in an unmanned stairwell in Dolphin House family courthouse in Temple Bar. This stairwell had no security and no closed-circuit television, CCTV, system. About two weeks ago, a female barrister was threatened with a sharp object held to her neck in a heinous and very disturbing attack. In the same incident, three prison officers were also attacked and injured. This is a place of work and State building managed by the Department of Justice and Equality. Attacks like this should not take place and I call on the Minister to look into this matter and into the security arrangements in all courts throughout the country so that such attacks do not occur in the future.