I, too, want to show our solidarity to the poor people who died crossing the English Channel in an absolutely awful situation.

This pandemic has shown us many of the good and not so good things about this country. It has shown us who we are and where we want to go. It has brought out the best in our people. Collectively, we have responded to the call of social solidarity to watch out for one another. It has brought many of us together who were never brought together before.

The ongoing public health emergency continues to create anxiety, grief and fear. I would argue that this pandemic raises the question of what is important in society. One of the issues is our health service. We have never before needed it to protect us and care for us more. Last year's general election was a political earthquake. It was a message to the political establishment that people had had enough of the state of our two-tier health service.

Almost a million patients will be on waiting lists by year end, with almost 300,000 people waiting over a year for treatment. There are only three hospital beds per 100,000 population whereas the OECD average is five per 100,000. One in five consultant posts is vacant and our ICU capacity per capita is little more than average for the OECD. We have some of the most dedicated and best educated staff in our health system.

Our two-tier health system has been shown to be deeply flawed and unequal. This is due to the historical legacy of cuts to beds and health resources. We can argue all day about who did what. This Government and previous Governments have advocated for private healthcare competing against the public system. Does the Tánaiste have the stomach to reverse past and present cuts? Can he grasp the challenge that the electorate of the country set for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil when they said this is no longer good enough and public services such as our health system are paramount? We want a universal health system that looks after people, whether they are a millionaire or on social welfare. If we do not have that, there will be a price to pay.

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge the simple fact that our public health service is too small for a population of 5 million people, which is also an ageing population. That is not the only reason but one of the reasons too many people have to wait too long for the health care they need. I fully acknowledge that.

The Deputy asked me if I have the stomach to reverse the cuts to our health service. I have more than the stomach for it. That is exactly what I have been doing during my time in government. From the moment it became possible, around 2014 or 2015 when the country exited the IMF bailout programme, we have expanded and invested in our health service. The Deputy does not need to take my word for it. He can check out the report, Health in Ireland: Key Trends 2021, which was published the other day. It will tell him exactly what has been happening in our health service over the past couple of years.

In 2015, I took the decision to reverse the policy of reducing the number of beds in our health service. Every year since 2015, we have seen an increase in the number of hospital beds in Ireland. At a time when most countries are reducing the number of beds, we have been increasing them. That is why we are getting closer every year to the OECD average the Deputy mentioned. We have 900 more beds today than we had before the pandemic began and roughly 2,000 more beds than we had in 2015.

The report to which I referred also shows that there are 44% more doctors in our public service today than there were ten years ago. How many people know that? It is a fact. There are 44% more doctors working in our public health service now than there were ten years ago. There is a health budget of €22 billion a year, the highest ever on a per capita basis.

There has been expansion in terms of making healthcare more affordable. For example, in the past couple of years, we have reduced prescription charges for those with medical cards as well as those who do not. We have introduced free GP care for children aged under six on a universal basis. We are bringing in free contraception later in the year. This is very much a programme that is being pursued by the Government.

We have 1,700 more nurses than we had at the beginning of the pandemic. We have a struggle recruiting and retaining staff, as does almost every health service in the world, but it is not a surprise that we should have to deal with that when we are expanding so fast. Many more posts are being created and many more beds are being added to the system. New hospitals are being built all of the time. We are making a lot of progress in that regard. We have a lot more to do, and I acknowledge that.

I acknowledge that. It is good for a society to have more capacity, beds and staff. It still does not answer my question of why more than 50% of people in Ireland have private health insurance. In general, people want good healthcare, whether private or public. The sentiments and patterns across the world are a public, universal one-tier health service such as exists in Britain under the NHS. The outcomes for everybody are really good when there is a health system from cradle to grave. A creeping privatisation has always existed in our health system. People are doing very well out of it and are profiteering from it. Does the Government have the stomach to end the two-tier system and instead provide a universal healthcare system?

I believe in universal healthcare in Ireland. As I outlined to the Deputy, it is something I have tried to make a reality in the past couple of years. We continue to work on that. There is a misunderstanding sometimes about how different health service models work around the world. About 10% of people in the United Kingdom have private health insurance. In lots of European countries, almost everyone has health insurance. That is the case in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Different models work in different countries. Unless we outlaw private health insurance entirely, and I think that might be the Deputy's party policy but perhaps not, we will always have people-----

I did not-----

-----with private health insurance. That is the case.

I never said we should outlaw private health insurance.

It is not the case that nobody has private health insurance in the United Kingdom. People do. In fact, a lot of European countries have an insurance-based model and people are either required to have health insurance or there is a system of social health insurance which is run through the health system. The NHS is not the typical model across the European Union. Countries across the EU tend to use insurance-based models. In Australia, which has a very good health service, there is a mixed system like ours.

The Deputy said one thing which is not correct. He said people have better outcomes in the NHS. In Ireland, one is more likely to survive cancer or a stroke, or recover from a heart attack, than in Britain. The idea that the NHS has better outcomes than Ireland is not correct. We have access problems, but we have better outcomes than the NHS.

We have time limits.