Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I tried to refer to this in my speech.

As politicians, making decisions, we will have to stand by clinical evidence. The benefit of trying to reach a political consensus is it strengthens the Minister of Health's hand. I regularly read in newspapers local calls for me to do this or that in the health service that contradict directly the clinical advice to me. I try to hold the line and follow clinical advice. It is important to differentiate between clinical advice and clinicians' views, which differ. Before any change happens in a hospital we have to make sure there is capacity in another hospital. I am not convinced there is spare capacity in many of our public hospitals.

I hope I understood the question about the private versus public charging mechanism. There is an odd incentive, which people have raised by way of parliamentary questions and at this committee, in terms of the private patient being more lucrative for hospital income than the public patient. One idea I have proposed is to try to align that rate of pay so that there is not a reverse incentive for a consultant to see more private patients.

In respect of the media, when I am asked at the weekend am I still planning to fulfil a programme for Government commitment to dismantle the HSE and what will I tell the committee next week, I am perfectly entitled to outline some of my views. When I was a member of Committee on Public Accounts, PAC, however, I was always struck that it was not generally the witnesses who tended to leak the speeches. People might want to reflect on that today based on some of the commentary I have read and the level of detail.