Mr. Patrick Burke:

I shall deal with the question on money raised by Senator Colm Burke. I am not going to reconcile the figures here. The figures that have been produced in the Department's material, and in Mr. Hennessy's statement, have come from the published audited figures which are figures that have been worked through with the troika as well. I can provide a summary of those figures.

The Senator mentioned that €2.6 billion was paid through the PCRS. I need to break it down and find out what was included. For example, in 2009 the figure was €2.633 billion but it included €491 million that was paid to general practitioners. As Mr. Hennessy said in his statement earlier, the figure for pharmacy includes ex-factory price, wholesale margin, fees and VAT. It depends on what actor presents what figure and at what point in time.

I can provide the committee and the Senator with a summary that is transparent about the figures we have produced. Then I can take any figure and attempt to reconcile it or let some other actor reconcile it because they may have compiled it in a different way. I hope I have simplified the matter for the committee.