David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I can see the logic to that. What I am trying to understand is situations where we do not have capacity. Mr. O'Brien mentioned orthopaedics as one example but there are many examples not just in Waterford, but across all public hospitals where there are capacity issues and patients are then being treated in private hospitals. Has the HSE done any cost analysis in regard to whether it would be better to put the capacity into the original hospitals to enable them to treat those patients, rather than having to pay for those patients to be treated in private hospitals? I am not asking from a patient perspective, which is important and I would always put myself in the shoes of a patient as I know most people do not want to travel, but from a cost perspective. Mr. O'Brien is the officer accountable to us. Has his organisation done an analysis of the cost of treating patients in private hospitals as opposed to putting the capacity into the public hospitals?