The Quinn group has started legal proceedings against the government over this Week's emergency legislation on risk equalization exemption.
Quinn has said it welcomes many of the conclusions reached in the Barrington Report and, in particular, the recognition that the main impediment to competition in the private health insurance market in Ireland is the dominant position and derogation from normal insurance solvency requirements enjoyed by VHI.
According to the Barrington report: "The state owned VHI has a dominant, favoured and protected position in the Irish PMI market. VHI has not shown itself to be clearly supportive of an enlargement of the market by new competitors, which would appear to be at odds with government policy."
The Quinn group said: “Following the removal of the three-year exemption to RES for new entrants we had hoped that the Barrington Report and the implementation of its recommendations would result in the creation of a level playing field for all market participants.”
"Other than legislating for a subsection of one of the twelve recommendations in the Barrington Report, and the two previous reports from the Competition Authority and HIA, and initiating another endless round of consultations, the government has not taken any firm action that address the impediments to fair competition whilst we are forced to continue to subsidise VHI inefficiencies. Under these circumstances we feel we have no option but to challenge the legality of the emergency legislation introduced by the government in February."
