Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, back to the House.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State may not be aware of the full history of this particular issue, but it is a problem for international students coming to Ireland and a requirement by the Department of Justice that they must have health insurance. This has been a long-running sore and to say it has been a difficulty is an understatement.

I raised the matter not long after my election to this House and subsequently raised it with the Ministers, Deputies Harris and Stephen Donnelly, including in this House on 24 September 2020 when the Minister, Deputy Harris, assured me that there would be progress on the issue.

On 5 March 2021, I introduced the Health Insurance (International Students) Amendment Bill with the specific purpose of trying to address this problem for our international students coming here. On the basis that there was a Government commitment that it would be addressed, I chose not to seek to amend the Health Insurance (Amendment) Act that December, because the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, told me that this issue would be resolved in a matter of months. Indeed, I tabled this as a Commencement matter with the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, on 9 December 2021. He assured me that it was not a policy matter for the Department of Health, but that this would be resolved, hopefully, within the following two months.

On Wednesday, 22 June, the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, was back answering this very same Commencement matter. I had tabled it at the time to the Department of Justice, which kicked it over to the Department of Health. I appreciate it is not specifically the remit of the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, but this is why the question is tabled to the Department of Justice.

I have quickly determined that the worst phrase one can hear in these Houses is that a matter falls between a number of Departments. However, what is very clear from the responses that I received from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Health, including from the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, just two weeks ago, is that this is now strictly within the remit of the Department of Justice.

Even though there are negotiations going on within the Departments, the other Departments said this is a matter for the Department of Justice to make a determination on. I am hoping that finally, after more than two years of raising this, and particularly where concerns have been expressed by the universities, the institutes of higher education, the Irish Council for Overseas Students, the Alliance for Insurance Reform, the Union of Students in Ireland – a whole range of players – but more particularly, the concern that this is for international students and international students who want to come here, that we can finally have an effective system that can be put in place that will allow them to have access to affordable insurance.I get that there are broader implications. For the most part, we are talking about students who are healthy and who are only going to be here for a specified period. However, if we are not clarifying this, it is a significant problem in respect of our wish to attract international students into Ireland. I hope that, today, the Minister of State will finally be able to give us some progress on it, particularly as the various Departments have all been promising that a resolution is imminent.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I am here on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Deputy Helen McEntee, and her Department. I thank the Senator for raising this important matter. The Minister is aware that this is an issue on which he is engaged. She, too, is keen to see a resolution to the matter as soon as possible.

By way of background, the Senator will be aware that many immigration permissions include the condition that the permission holder must have private health insurance; this does not just apply to international students. The rationale for this is that the permission holder must be able to support themselves while living in the State without recourse to State services such as public healthcare.

A 2018 Court of Appeal judgment found that students who are here for a course of study for more than one year are deemed to be ordinarily resident for the purposes of health insurance legislation, meaning that, if required to have private health insurance, that insurance must meet the conditions that apply to private health insurance generally. This means that health insurance policies sold internationally to international students would need to be community rated, provide minimum cover and comply with other requirements set out under law, potentially resulting in a higher cost to the student.

Ireland benefits from its international student population and our policy, led by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, is to encourage more international students to come to study in the State. We do not want to create impediments to this but we must also be cautious that any policy changes implemented do not have unintended consequences with implications for the delivery of State services. That is why the Department of Justice has been working closely with the Departments of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and Health to examine the implications of this ruling and to put in place an appropriate solution.

As the Senator will be aware, students already have travel insurance that covers their medical needs for their first year in the State. Discussions are, therefore, ongoing between the three Departments as to whether it would be appropriate to drop the requirement for health insurance under the student scheme, starting from year two. The removal of this requirement could impact public health services and, therefore, the views of the Department of Health are crucial to guiding any decision in this regard. The Minister, Deputy McEntee's office has been engaging directly with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly's office and, as I said at the outset, she is keen to see a resolution to this issue as quickly as possible.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. I am afraid my response is to tell us something that we do not know. The difficulty, as he rightly outlined, is that this has been an issue since the 2018 Court of Appeal judgment. Discussions have been ongoing since that time between the Departments so I do not accept there is any urgency among them about trying to resolve this. The issue had always been around those students who were studying in the State for more than one year. It would surely be reasonably easy for the Department of Health to quantify how many “students” potentially impose a burden on our health service of those who are spending more than one year studying here. On the assumption that a significant number of them are younger, they are likely to be healthier and the number is probably fairly small but, in any event, one would imagine that in a four-year period that could have been quantified. I appreciate the Minister of State is only delivering the response but I really do not believe that, after four years some sort of innovative solution could not be found to address what is a relatively simple matter,.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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On the question of quantification, I believe 30,000 international students would be affected by this, so that is the number being looked at. There is a concern in the Department of Health that this could lead to calls from other groups for similar arrangements on the basis of fairness and, therefore, it would go beyond students and other people on international visas would request the same treatment, which could lead to a higher cost or higher burden on the State through the Department.

The Minister for Justice said it is clear that the insurance policy that was previously available to students in the State is no longer available for them to purchase as it does not comply with relevant legislation.To avoid a problem for the students and the colleges they attend, the Ministers are committed to addressing the issue at the earliest opportunity they can.