Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to ask Dr. Keegan a question. One of the things I think this comes down to, from a financial perspective, is that we have bought into the principle, but we have to pay for the principle. Does Dr. Keegan have a sense as to whether public hospitals, when they charge insurance companies for private work, fully recoup the costs with a bit of a margin? Do they recoup less than the costs? In other words, if one is running a hospital, and let us say 10% of one's patients are private patients, from the money one gets from them, is one covering the costs and does one have a little bit extra to spend on the public system, or is one losing a bit and having to subsidise private work with the public budget?