Can we have a debate on health insurance and the reduction in tax relief for private health insurance policies? When the Minister introduced this measure in the budget, he used the phrase "gold-plated health insurance policies" and led everyone to believe that the measure would only affect a minority. He suggested it would only affect a minority of gold-plated, high net worth individuals who could afford these exorbitant policies. However, we now know that the Department of Finance has stated that 577,000 private health insurance policies will be affected, with increases in premiums. The insurance industry says the figure for those affected is closer to 1.2 million.

This measure has already come into effect as it was voted on in the Lower House to take immediate effect. Health insurers will now write to all policy holders telling them what the increase will be on their policies. I remind Members on the other side of the House that we have raised this issue in the past two years. In the past two and a half years, more than 300,000 people have given up their private health insurance. This year alone, 110,000 have given up health insurance policies and many of these are young people with young families. This drives the cost of health insurance higher. I would like the Minister for Finance to come to the House to debate this issue in order that he can explain to us how he came to believe this measure would only affect gold-plated policies. Perhaps he was mistaken on the day of the budget. I take it he was mistaken and was misinformed. He obviously acted on information that was incomplete. Otherwise, he would not have stated that the measure would only affect a minority. His Department says the measure will affect 600,000 people. What will happen now is that tens of thousands more of policy holders will give up their private health insurance. Perhaps this is the drive towards universal health care and to getting rid of our two-tier health system. However, what this measure does is put further pressure on a health system that is completely broken. I do not understand how the Minister could implement this on the basis of the information he had. Therefore, I request the Leader to arrange a debate on the issue in the next couple of weeks.

I remind the House that yesterday almost 10,000 people demonstrated outside Leinster House. It was interesting to listen to these people, mainly old age pensioners and senior citizens, speak about the cuts made in the budget and the attacks made on them in the past two and a half years. I looked back over the record to see what happened in 2008 when a similar protest against a Fianna Fáil measure - which was wrong - was held. I found it really interesting that in 2008 the current Taoiseach said he rejected the then Government's proposal to remove the right of people over 70 to a medical card. He said: "The cheek of them, shame on them." The current Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, said those people had worked hard all their lives and paid high taxes and only wanted the peace of mind of having a medical card if unwell. This is what the two heroes said in 2008. However, they were not outside yesterday. They did not even go out and meet the protesters or discuss the issues with them. No wonder there is such cynicism in politics.

The Senator is way over his time.

No wonder there is such cynicism when these two most powerful men in the country were able to go out and court political favour in 2008 and have now completely changed. If anything, they are making the situation much worse.

No wonder there is such cynicism in politics when Fianna Fáil accuses the Government of presiding over a broken health service, when it was a Fianna Fáil Government that presided over the formation of the HSE and the establishment of its bureaucratic structure which is proving extremely difficult to dismantle - a structure which has had a very negative effect on our health care system. Therefore, it is hard to accept this sort of criticism from the Senator. I am aware we had a robust exchange on the issue of the health care system yesterday. I am sure the Leader will respond to the Senator.

I call for a debate on a specific aspect of health policy, the minimum alcohol price policy. I understand a decision was made on this at the Cabinet yesterday. A range of measures is required to tackle the problems associated with alcohol abuse and it appears a package of measures was agreed at the Cabinet. It would be good to have a debate in the House on the issue. We have had debates on the issue previously, but if there is to be a genuine move towards minimum alcohol pricing and more restrictions on alcohol advertising, it would be good to have the opportunity to debate this here, particularly in light of the constructive report we produced in the public consultation committee on lifestyle factors that affect cancer. Alcohol was a significant factor in those hearings.

I would like to support Senator Jim D'Arcy with regard to an issue he raised yesterday concerning a change made in the budget to the one-parent family tax credit which is to be replaced by a new single person child care credit from January 2014. In recent days, quite a number of people have expressed concern about the unforeseen consequence of this. The proposal is to restrict payment to the primary carer only. This may cause great difficulties where separated parents have an arrangement for shared custody, where there are two primary carers. It is important we take another look at this measure to ensure it does not have the consequence of adversely affecting amicable, working arrangements for child care between separated parents. It is important to tease out the implications of this measure and, if necessary, to look at amending it.

Will the Leader arrange for debates on two reports of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality which are on the Order Paper for debate? These are the report on penal reform which was produced earlier this year and the report on changes to prostitution law. The committee is currently engaged in drafting a response to the Minister for Justice and Equality on the latter so perhaps that debate cannot take place until the new year. However, it would be good to have the debate on penal reform before Christmas.