Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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422. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of the recent Economic and Social Research Institute report on universal health insurance; if upon deciding the commission of research into the estimated costs of universal health insurance, he invited tenders for the conduct of this research. [41661/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), An examination of the potential costs of Universal Health Insurance in Ireland, ESRI Research Series Number 5, (September, 2015) was undertaken as part of a three-year Research Programme on Healthcare Reform agreed between the ESRI and the Department of Health. The agreed average annual cost of this programme, which aims to apply economic analysis to explore issues in relation to health services, health spending and population health, is €393,000.

As the report was undertaken as part of a research programme and all final outputs under the research programme are public goods, tendering requirements did not apply. The ESRI operates similar research programmes with other public bodies.