Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

Without going into the contractual or commercial terms, we are looking for a change which would introduce a payment on account system to significantly reduce the level of debtor days. We are looking to be able to issue the insurers with a bill, which we are able to do because, as the Comptroller and Auditor General said, there are a number of moving parts to this. We aim to collect the statutory charge the Oireachtas has set out, which is a per diemcharge. To collect that charge we must submit our bill, which we can do on average within five or six working days. The issue is that we must also produce the private fees bills for consultants and various secondary consultants. We are looking to get a payment on account which only requires us to send a file for the statutory charge and to get a percentage of that paid upfront. That would make a significant difference to this situation.