Professor Sean Tierney:

Deputy Boyd Barrett asked about the national health system. I share his concerns that large amounts of money would disappear on administration or profit in a for-profit system and we would rather see a system that was focused on delivering care. The best models in our system - be they in public or private hospitals - are the not-for-profit facilities that are provided and that also carries through into community care and so on. Given the enormous amounts of money spent on health care, I am not sure it is a simple matter on which I can answer with one sentence. However, I agree that what we have heard to date about proposals from multiple providers and multiple insurers in a small country would be extremely risky. It is not just that there would be a large number of costs but both those services would ultimately be taken over by offshore operations whose goal is taking profit out of Ireland to elsewhere. We have made submissions on that before and we have several policy papers on it. We are anxious to engage in the process the Minister has set up but so far contributions have not been invited from us or others. We would be happy to engage in that and we share the Deputy's concerns. I will leave the other matters for my colleagues to address.