Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have a timer so I can stay within my time. The Members will have to bear with me as I jump from page to page. I feel for the poor people who have to take note of my speeches.

The Minister of State said in his speech that more than 45% of the Irish population holds private health insurance. In light of Senator Kyne's point, I find this an interesting figure. For the last five years or longer we have been talking about implementing Sláintecare. Millions of euros have been invested and countless hours have been given over to discussions of Sláintecare in this House, the Dáil, the Joint Committee on Health and all sorts of other political spaces. It seems a little bit strange that we are perpetuating a two-tier health system that is split between public and private when we should be assessing what will happen to the private healthcare sector during the era of Sláintecare. I certainly look forward to that era, when we will have an NHS-style healthcare system here in Ireland. We need to have a conversation about the future of private healthcare. I am aware that I have gone a little off-piste, but I think that is an important point.

I would like to draw attention to something that may be a side issue but is related to today's discussion. I refer to non-community rated international student health insurance. I do not know if the Minister of State has been contacted by the Alliance for Affordable Insurance for International Students. This is a quite large alliance of representative bodies including the Irish Council for International Students, ICOS, the Higher Education Colleges Association, the Union of Students in Ireland and several universities. It campaigns for the continued availability of non-community rated student medical insurance for international students studying in Ireland. This follows a decision of the Health Insurance Authority, HIA, that non-EEA students studying in Ireland on courses of more than one academic year are to be considered ordinarily resident in Ireland for the purposes of the Health Insurance Acts. A recent Court of Appeal ruling confirmed the HIA position on applying community-rated medical insurance to international students in Ireland.

Ireland is the destination of choice for many international students seeking to begin or further their higher education in an English-speaking country. We cannot really afford to lose international students due to a sudden lack of cost-effective and tailored cover for medical expenses. For context, I note that since this happened the cost of international students' insurance has gone from about €150 per year to €690 per year. That is a 450% increase. This happened after 20 years during which international student insurance was relatively stable. This has been raised with the Government in the last 20 months.It has also been raised in this House and I have tabled an amendment to this Bill that will address this issue for international students. As I said, it has been raised in this House a couple of times and I hope the Minister of State will see fit to fix the anomaly that is causing an enormous amount of stress for international students. I need not, as I say every week, refer to the great work that our healthcare workers are doing in Ireland, and those international medical students are very important to us, both in terms of our international reputation and the fact that they are healthcare workers on the front line.

We will be supporting this Bill and I hope the Government will support my amendment. We have talked today about fairness and stabilisation and I put it up to House to ensure that our international students are treated with the same respect. I am sure I will get to talk further about the amendment when we come to it.