THE Government would appoint an independent body to represent, VHI subscribers if it was needed, the Dail was told.

The Minister of State for Education, Mr Bernard Allen, said the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, was keeping an open mind on the matter. He was replying, on the adjournment, to the Fianna Fail spokeswoman on health, Ms Maire Geoghegan Quinn, who demanded that the VHI subscribers' council be placed on a statutory footing. Otherwise, she warned, the VHI would try to manipulate it.

She said it had been reported that an official reprimand had been issued by the VHI to the council after the body had urged that an agreement be reached with private hospitals and demanded an end to the practice of extra billing for patients.

Mr Allen said the council had been operating for less than a year and it was too early to say whether it had been a success. "It is up to the VHI board to form an opinion on that matter in the first instance."

However he said the Minister reserved the right to establish a body that was independent of the VHI if the circumstances so required. "It is important that VHI members feel that they have a forum to which their concerns can be expressed and that the board is responsive to those concerns."

Ms Geoghegan Quinn said there had been much understandable public disquiet about the VHI in recent months. It had lost two chief executives in a very short time. "To lose one chief executive is serious, but to lose two in less than two years reflects that the company is off course and requires to be stabilised."

Over the past 10 years, premiums had gone up by 54 per cent, she added. In the past four years, when inflation was running at less than 2 per cent annually, the compounded VHI premium increase was 35 per cent.