€700k of taxpayers money spent on shelved Universal Health Insurance reports

Almost €700,000 of mainly taxpayers’ money was spent on a series of reports examining a model of universal health insurance (UHI) which the Government has admitted will never get off the ground.

Four separate reports were commissioned on the topic, three by the Government and one by the Health Insurance Authority (HIA), the private health insurance market regulator.

Asked by the Irish Examiner for a breakdown of the figures, the Department of Health said it incurred costs of €211,972 in connection with the preparation of the white paper on UHI. It said the main elements of expenditure related to: