Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will ask a hard question. If there is a settlement for €1.5 million, legal and professional fees will be €500,000, or approximately one third of the total. That means that of a total of €3 billion, there will be €1 billion for the legal profession.

I know there will be people giving out about me because of this, but instead of paying out on an hourly basis for the next ten years or paying daily and hourly rates every time it wants someone to read a file, would it not be better for the Department of Health to hire 50 of its own people on a salary at a fraction of the cost? While it is not within its remit and is for legislation, is it within the terms of the review that the Department of Health is doing to look at the management of the claims to reduce the cost to the taxpayer through the direct employment by the State of its own legal team on an employee basis and on an annual salary as opposed to the hourly rate?