Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A long time ago the health committee spoke about equipment. The word "equip" comes up in the list of costs, with a figure of €87.9 million. Is that to buy or lease equipment? Who decides that? A lot of corporations, even in retail and certainly in the HSE, do not own their equipment because the price of having the manpower, or womanpower, to service the equipment is an issue. They lease the photocopier or the MRI scanner and the contractor services it. Is that the model or are we buying stuff? I spent time on the health committee some years ago and I understood that the lease option was preferred from the point of view of long-term costs. With a lease a company gets a new product when the first is out of date. Is there another surprise coming down the tracks in relation to this?