John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is disappointing that Dr. Herity did not answer that question straightforwardly. The very first question I asked him was whether the review took into account clinical risk and safety and if it is general practice that the clinical safety of the patient should be paramount in the reviews. Does he accept that the volume of complex procedures in the part-time single cath lab is a point of failure?

Perhaps Dr. Herity could give me a straight answer to this. During the review, did he know how many were being referred out of hours? Could he tell me how many he thought were being referred out of hours or were being referred to other hospitals? Was that taken into consideration in the review? This should be a very simple answer. When Dr. Herity undertook the review, did he have these numbers? Forget about what was going into the part-time cath lab up to 5 p.m. Does he have the numbers there in front of him, or did he have them, of people that were being referred out of hours to other hospitals? That should be a very straightforward answer. He should have statistics. I cannot see them in his report.

Second, is Dr. Herity saying that, based on the figures and in his experience, if there were a second cath lab, would there be a higher volume of people using the service? It is very important however that he answer the first question regarding the clinical risk factor and whether he had the figures when he went to the area? Does he have the figures for the number of people who were referred out of hours and to other hospitals?