Ms Colette Cowan:

I do not think it happens. We work closely with the consultant body and they are anxious that we improve the number of consultants providing a service because they are overwhelmed with the workload. They see over 50 patients in their clinics in orthopaedics and ophthalmology alone. They are overwhelmed by referrals, both public and private, into UL Hospitals Group and they have to manage that. We have a common waiting list. People are put on the list chronologically and that is observed and monitored on a monthly basis. We report to Mr. Liam Woods on it.

There is an opportunity to look at contracts to attract good consultants to work in this country. Of my five orthopaedic consultants, two are on the Buckley contract, which does not compel them to have a certain public-private ratio. We dedesignated the beds in Croom Hospital under the Health (Amendment) Act 2013 which, in effect, created a gap for us around monitoring the public-private mix. We put a performance metric on it to ensure that we stayed around 35%, to ensure that the beds would not be overused for private patients but those consultants are within the contract. I have failed them under the 2008 contract because I did not provide co-location. We do not have that co-located hospital that other centres may have in Dublin. We are unique in the region but I am assured that my consultants work across the six sites. I know where they are and that many of them work over and above requirements. When the Deputy mentioned "Prime Time" and asked if we saw it and knew about it, we were well aware that this would air. We had answered freedom of information, FOI, inquiries for weeks. The result of that investigation, while it is important that the public is aware and assured, was great distress to my 139 consultants who work in UL Hospitals Group, whom we met to try to reassure that it was a small cohort of people that we had to manage. Our consultants provide excellent care over and above their contracts.