asked the Minister for Health if the Government are planning a contributory scheme to finance the cost of the health services to the middle income group; and, if so, if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna-Questions. Oral Answers. - Financing of Health Services.
11.
This matter has been under examination for some time and I would hope to be in a position to indicate the Government's views early in the New Year. I might add that the subject is a very complex one and that it involves Government Departments other than my own.
Does the Minister's reply mean that the Government at last are beginning to see the sense of the Fine Gael policy in relation to health insurance?
I do not want to go into this in detail. I could not possibly do so in answer to a question. The proposals of the Fine Gael Party were not based, I think, on viable grounds. On the other hand, the question of providing a contributory system was extraordinarily complex from the point of view of ensuring that the burden would fall in an equitable way on the different sections of the community with their differing incomes and to relating that to contributions to the rates and to general taxation. Any scheme would be extraordinarily difficult to devise which would ensure that the burden would be distributed equitably. The Fine Gael proposition was one that, in my view, left as many questions to be answered as were answered. I am not necessarily saying that, for that reason, it was not sincerely brought forward. It is a most complex matter and it still is under examination.
Does the Minister mean by that that the previous stand adopted by the Fianna Fáil Government—in which the idea of a contributory health scheme based on insurance was condemned out of hand as being utterly impossible—is no longer taken by the present Government?
My predecessor and other members of this party said they agreed that a contributory scheme could be examined, could be looked into : my predecessor certainly said it— oh yes he did——
No, unless my recollection is at fault—to aid the Minister's recollection—can the Minister not recall that when details of this proposal were put before the Select Committee on Health Services, the Minister's predecessor dissolved the committee and the then Taoiseach in this House declared the scheme to be utterly unworkable and that no scheme based on a contributory health approach could be possible in this country?
The scheme as then proposed did seem to be unworkable but any scheme proposed has difficulties.
If there is a will there is a way.
Many people who would argue that if we were to devise a scheme, if we are able to do so, using a method of insurance, in the long run it might not prove to be much more fair to the people concerned than a system of taxation. It is very much an arguable point. I am looking into this matter with the utmost sincerity and objectivity to see if there is a way out and I may be able to bring proposals before the Dáil.
I can guarantee that the Minister will find a way out because we were right and we are now being proved right.
Is the Minister aware that this is actually in the Government's Third Programme for Economic Expansion?
That is right. It has been put as a possibility.
Why not reintroduce the 1947 Health Act? It would get unanimous support now.