Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Certainly in respect of the one part that we are very clear about at this point, I have no hesitation, on behalf of the HSE, in apologising to the service provider and, by extension, the whistleblower and to the whistleblower and, by extension, the service provider for the fact that it was necessary to agree to pay to it €600,000 to cover the costs of past services that it had provided. The agreement does deal with future costs and so on.

The second part is in relation to whether there was discrimination against the service provider. I will not offer an apology on that until I have ascertained the facts because it would be somewhat hollow to do so.