Dr. Emmet Kerin:

To answer a few of the Deputy's questions, an article was written at that time that 12 ambulances were pulled out outside University Hospital Limerick and subsequently there was a retraction from the UL hospital group, where the finger had been pointed at GPs being the cause of that. That has been retracted. It is very important to clarify that in Shannondoc, which is the out-of-hours service, there was a 7% referral rate to that hospital over the Christmas period. That is a metric that is audited and that is a fact. When we consider that sick people attend Shannondoc, a referral rate of 7% is tiny. What we saw with those 12 ambulances was the back-up, what was going on inside the hospital and the people in the ambulances were sick patients.