Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

To speak in generality, all our staff involved in this process, particularly in dealing with people coming through emergency departments, often work in very difficult circumstances. It is also a very difficult time for the individual patients and their families. Most of our staff are always doing their absolute best. We could not and do not condone any situation where a patient would be harassed, and it is regrettable if anyone perceived they were, so that needs to be investigated and followed up. That said, our general policy in terms of interacting with patients would not allow for that. It does not require necessarily a separate specific policy when we are speaking to them about insurance matters. If that incident occurred, it will be investigated. It should not have happened. We suggest it is not the norm and is not what our staff come to work to do every day.

With regard to the budget, I remind people the charges we are speaking about were introduced under 2013 legislation. This means they are legal embodiments of policy. We are obliged to raise them. The funding of the health service assumes we raise them. Approximately 7% to 8% of the total costs of the 48 hospitals in the health service hospital division is supported by the increments raised from the private health insurance charge. The majority of this comes from people who enter the system through the emergency route. That said-----