Ms Eilísh Hardiman:

I can confirm that the children's hospital group plans to break even in 2016. We do not plan to make any service cuts. We have a unique issue in regard to income. I refer to the policy contradiction whereby the position on cards for children aged under six is such that children who attend, some for highly specialist services, do so under those cards. Previously, they would have done so privately. We have lost our ability in this area. We are working with the national acute hospital office to raise this as a formal issue so hospitals will not be penalised where there is a policy position that actually has an impact on the income that was generated by paediatric hospitals in the past.