Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us hope so. It strikes me as an extraordinary up yours to Sláintecare - not by Dr. de Buitléir, obviously- by the Government to build physical private facilities in at a time when it says it is taking them out. Dr. de Buitléir referenced in his report and in his opening statement the idea that the vast majority of private care in public hospitals is coming from patients who have come through the emergency department, and one could argue, therefore, that removing those insurance payments is like saying there is no such thing as a private patient in a public hospital anymore. One is coming in as a public patient. If we are running a hospital, in essence all that would happen is that virtually the same number of patients would come in. We would have to provide the same level of care to the same number of patients more or less, but we would have substantially less money to do it. Obviously, we have to square that circle because we want to take the private care out of the public hospitals. Is that a reasonable reflection of the current situation?