UK overpaid Ireland's health system

[toxic avenger]

The United Kingdom has for over 40 years paid Ireland's health system to look after returned emigrants and others who paid national insurance contributions when they lived and worked in Britain. It seems that they have been overpaying by a large amount every year until very recently, something the Tories yesterday drew attention to (not attacking Ireland):

The Irish administration gets money to pay for the healthcare of people who worked in the UK, then went home.
But in 2007, the UK overpaid by 150m euros - and the Tories say they want a parliamentary inquiry to investigate if further overpayments have been made.
The UK government said only the 2007 figure was disputed, but Ireland warned it now faces a funding shortfall.
The agreement that the UK government make such payments has existed for 40 years.
It is based on the national insurance Irish citizens have paid in the UK.

The UK government has been paying around 450m euros per year.
But the Tories say that in 2007, the UK government said it had overpaid by around 150m euros.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7990563.stm

The cock-up seems to be on the British side in terms of the calculations. The money was supposed to be to help those of us who have paid national insurance in Britain, particularly people who worked there all their lives before retiring, returned pensioners and so on. The money wasn't spent on those people. What happened to the money?

[toxic avenger]

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the government gave Ireland €2bn (£1.8bn) over the last five years to cover the healthcare costs of 50,000 pensioners who retired to the country after working in Britain and paying national insurance contributions to the British exchequer.
Under a deal struck in 1971, Britain agreed it was unfair to keep the workers' contributions without providing them with benefits. It offered to recompense the Irish government for providing the pensioners with health treatment.
Lansley said: "A transcript of evidence given by the Irish health minister, Mary Harney, to the Irish parliament reveals that the UK has been vastly overpaying Ireland."
Harney told the Irish select committee on health: "The error was not on our side. The UK authorities paid us €450m [in 2007]. They then reckoned they had paid us €150m more than they should have. To claw the money back Britain reduced the payment to €100m in 2008 and was planning to pay €250m this year."

Tories call for inquiry into NHS cash overpayments to Ireland | Politics | The Guardian


So the money is to be 'clawed back' through reduced payments? I got the impression that the reduced payments were merely to reflect the actual figure, not to get money back. Is there a way of verifying? The Scotsman newspaper is saying it was 750 million Euros over five years of overpayments. Nobody is blaming the Irish government for this. But where did that money go if it wasn't spent on returned emigrants? The money should be earmarked for them as a result of their contributions when living in Britain, but clearly hasn't been used so far on them. Where did the money go? Have the contribution-based insurance payments of returned emigrants been used to pay for other things?

[toxic avenger]

UK 'overpaid' Irish health service - The Irish Times - Thu, Apr 09, 2009

Tory health spokesman on Morning Ireland: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0409/hea...23368,null,209

[odie1kanobe]

Already a thread.

[toxic avenger]

Already a thread.

Mine was first.

[odie1kanobe]

Mine was first.

Had a big impact as everyone ignored it.

[toxic avenger]

Had a big impact as everyone ignored it.

If there was a way of making it more glamorous I'd have done it. Can a mod change the title of the thread to 'Sexy international money controversy thread'?....

[drzhivago]

The cock-up seems to be on the British side in terms of the calculations. The money was supposed to be to help those of us who have paid national insurance in Britain, particularly people who worked there all their lives before retiring, returned pensioners and so on. The money wasn't spent on those people. What happened to the money?

I thought I knew quite a bit about funding of health service but had to admit this was the first I heard of this

what exactly are they paying us for and why?

If it is to reimburse us to provide the service these people should have gotten in the UK then the people who paid in the UK and are still paying here are the ones losing out

They should have stayed in UK for better service

The only better thing for them here is the lack of restriction on cancer drugs, if their consultant says they need it here they get it unlike in UK

However their access to GP is worse from financial perspective unless they have medical card

Their access to emergency department is worse

Their wait time for OPD referrals are worse

Their wait time for admission to hospital is worse

So I too would like to ask the question where specifically has this money gone, is it a separate line item that has been tracked to show it has been spent on healthcare for the people that made these contributions over the years

Another question I would like to ask is how much money are we talking about exactly, figures were bandied about of 400 Million being paid from a budget of 14 billion

so when we hear stats to say we now spend more than the EU average that is not true then if 10billion goes on wages in health service and government are actually spending 4 billion cash on drugs/capital etc then 400 million of that is coming from UK

How many more dirty little secrets are there out there about how we raise money and fund things