Dr. John Marley:

One of the key pillars of this proposal is to have a stratified system of healthcare delivery, the final one of which is the so-called specialist centres, which are referred to as dental schools and hospitals, and others. It remains to be seen how they will manifest themselves. Specialists are clearly needed for those specialist centres. If, as Mr. Hourihan noted, there is inevitable swamping of the services as they now stand, there will inevitably be upward referral to those specialist services, going by bitter experience in the UK. They have to balance it. If there are not specialists and consultants to manage that, there will not be a system.