Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In respect of the strategic banking corporation, the Minister took an amendment to the articles of association that its activity should operate in a counter-cyclical way. Our amendment ruled out the building industry because we have done that before. Some of it is incorporated in the articles of association. I think the Minister for Finance took it to some meeting of finance Ministers in Spain. The Irish Fiscal Advisory council should keep an eye on them and make sure they operate as it would like them to operate because it is in the articles of association in any case.

I would like the comprehensive public expenditure reviews to be from the bottom upwards. If we look at Professor McHale's own area of interest, which is the health service, that is the target so what are the instruments? There are some studies showing that we keep people in hospital for far too long and it is extremely expensive. Other studies examine the balance between outpatients, GP services and hospitalisation, whether hospitalisation is extremely expensive, and the average length of stay is long. Top-level budgets for the health service just did not work. They just ignored them because the alternative was to throw patients out. If we are carrying out analysis, one might say that we can keep the healthiness but reduce the budget by not keeping people in. Certain treatments here take 11.6 days when they would take 3.7 days internationally. It is down to the way VHI pays hospitals. Of course, they will keep one in because one is a little goldmine when one is there. I would like to see a lot of this analysis rather than the kind of top-level stuff to which Professor McHale referred.