And this is a major reason why the UK, along with the US, has the least mobility between social classes of any OECD country (that is to say, in the UK if you are born poor you are more likely to remain poor, and if you are born rich you are more likely to remain rich, than anywhere else in the OECD, except for the US).

Private health insurance funds facilities and services in public hospitals.

The same is not true for private school fees.

I'd dispute that....whether you term it public or private, a fee paying school is one that is principally funded by the state with supplemental funding from the fee payer.......private healthcare is one that is principally funder by the state with supplemental funding from the fee payer......in both cases the fee payer gets access to a service that is not available publicly. For example, the private ward in the Rotunda Maternity Hospital is in a public hospital, but its not available to public patients.

Access to private health facilities is different to private health insurance. The majority of people (probably vast majority) paying into VHI or Aviva policies will be accessing public facilities. Most people will likely only be doing so for procedures not available in the public system.

Based on what you just said, one could make the argument that private health insurance offers a greater increment than private schooling.

With private schooling, in theory the quality of the education received should be no different to that of a public school. Whereas quite clearly the quality of the healthcare received is superior with private health insurance.

Anyway, I see the two as being analogous. In both cases, people are paying extra to gain a supplement over what the public system offers; In both cases, the product involves taking what the public system offers and saying if you want to pay extra, then you will get a superior service.

With health insurance people are paying to cover the risk of incurring medical costs they'd have to pay out of pocket. The money they pay goes to the same hospitals and the same doctors in almost all cases.

There's no analogy there beyond a desire to justify private school fees as "everyone does it". The critical part of people's objection to the private school fees is the ring fencing of public funds beyond the reach of those that can't afford the fee. Private health insurance does not share this feature and thus the analogy is not valid.

The same doctors yes. But consultants have a private fee income and a public fee income. So in effect they are providing two different services. And often work from different locations for public and private. Is that not ringfencing? I think it is.

People are not paying medical insurance to cover the risk of incurring medical costs in my opinion; rather they are paying so that they don't have to depend on the public system. So that rather than waiting 18 months for a treatment they can get it done straight away.

As regards your point about ringfencing of public funds within the school system......by definition every cent of public money that is spent on any school is ringfenced into that school, but all schools receive the same amount.

To take the example I mentioned earlier of Belvedere (fee paying) and St Vincents (non-fee paying)......kids who are in Vincents have access to exactly the same quantum of public funds as kids who are in Belvedere, and vice versa.

You are ignoring the fact that while it (sometimes) it may be the same doctors and the same hospitals, but the waiting time is very different indeed. Plus, increasingly, with the Beacon and the Hermitage coming into the market, its often different hospitals.

Some examples. I was worried recently about my son's hearing. Not in a major way - he clearly was not seriously hard of hearing - but because there is a family history of deafness, I wanted to get it checked out. Bottom line - a public appointment would have taken 7/8 months approx, as he was not an emergency case. Paying privately, and getting a partial refund from VHI, I got an appointment with an audiologist in the Beacon within 3 working days and the results sent to my GP the following week.

Another one. OH had a hernia op recently. Consultant he was referred to is in the Mater. Private list in the Mater Private meant a 2 week wait. Public list in the Mater Public meant a 3 month wait. Our VHI policy didn't cover the Mater Private but we were able to get an appointment with a different consultant who operated in Mount Carmel and a week later, the op was done and dusted.

Another one. A friend has been having headaches, numbness and tingling in his limbs and some problems jumbling up words. At the GP yesterday, paying for a brain scan in a private clinic tomorrow and should see a neurologist before Christmas. Anyone think that would happen to a patient with a medical card?

And just try accessing appropriate mental health services as a public patient, particularly if you need in patient treatment or some sort of out patient therepeutic intervention that is more complex, costly and time consuming than being given a prescription for anti-depressants and a second appointment 9 months hence.

I have some reservations about private schooling but they are nothing to the repulsion I feel at the two tier health system.

My point also.

With private schooling, parents arent paying for better teachers.....they cant, the teachers are funded by the state in all schools, and all teachers are paid the same. They are paying for tennis courts and nice tables and chairs and rugby and so on.

With private healthcare, you are talking about the difference between early diagnosis and late diagnosis, which is a fundamental difference far greater that the fundamental difference between the standard of education in public and private schools.

Yet many of the people who give out about fee paying schools have no problem taking out private health insurance.

Up until recent years private health insurance was affordable if you worked - in effect you made the choice based on your age, attitude to risk, personal experiences/situation. In effect private health insurance was an additional tax paid by risk averse people. If you squeeze private health insurance from an ideological standpoint then that is fine but the system needs to be ready to take up the slack. it isn't.

Just spotted this response now.

I'm not saying that parents pay €5k per kid just to bring the standard of the fee paying school up to that of a other public schools. Of course you'd expect the quality of facilities and everything else is better at fee paying schools, and that's why we do it.

What I am saying is that with the funding rules that are now in place, and the fee levels charged by the private school sector in Ireland in effect a lot of the fees go to pay for stuf that's paid for by the state elsewhere. Before we get to paying for the good stuff like a nurse, or rugby coaching or whatever, we have to bridge the funding gap between what the state provides elsewhere and to our school. It costs the state something like €8,000 per student per year for the public schools, and €4,500 for fee-paying schools. You could say that of the €5,000 fee, €3,500 of it goes on that gap.


This makes interesting reading http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee ... 08570.html




The fact is that we all as Irish taxpayers provide capital investment funds which go out to some lucky public schools - in the 2011 budget it was €491 million. We provide a capitation grant to public schools, €375 per student. We provide 1 teacher for every 19 students in a public school

So as a taxpayer I contribute to all of that. I don't begrudge it in the slightest, education is a public good

When we made the choice to supplement this payment and send our kids to a fee-paying school, it was because there is a lack of good, co-educational schools with decent facilities in Ireland. To get the education we want for our kids we have to pay extra for it. To say that because of that choice we make we should be punished by removing state support is grossly unfair.

The analogy with the health service is a good one. Private money going into the system subsidises the overall cost

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1216/economy-business.html

With more money coming out of the economy next year, i wonder where they are getting their growth from?

The black economy according to the Revenue

And because you're a snob!

(only joking)

but genuinely

if your thesis is correct......that by your own reckoning, most of the fee paid by parents in a private school is only catch up with what public funded schools receive....

......then why is it, as you have stated yourself, that the standard of education and facilities are significantly* better in fee paying schools than in non-fee paying schools.

(By significantly, I mean sufficient to warrant you paying €5k a year for it).

I dont see how you can square the two.

Because over a long time it provides enough of a fund to invest in the equipment, because it wasn't always such a big gap, and even if there is a large part going to bridge that funding gap, when you multiply it by 500-plus students it's enough to hire extra teachers