Irish people remain very wary of giving up their private health insurance, latest figures show.

They are fearful of having to rely on the public system given the very long hospital waiting lists.

Despite the impact of Covid-19 and employment levels, there has been a rise in people taking out private health insurance.

In Ireland, there are now 2.4 million people with some form of private health insurance. That’s out of a population of over 5 million people.

According to new data from the Health Insurance Authority, there has been a rise of 17,264 people with health insurance, compared with the start of the year.

The Vhi has the biggest market share at over 48%, followed by Laya at over 27% and Irish Life at over 20%.

It says something about public confidence, or more like a lack of confidence in the HSE and the Government in getting hospital waiting lists to fall.

There has already been a warning that waiting list target reductions may not be reached this year.

Everyone who has private health cover is also entitled to public treatment and pays taxes for this but they opt to be safe and take out cover.

When you also add in the increasing number of people using the cross border healthcare directive for healthcare abroad, the public system is badly broken in Ireland.