I thank Dr. de Buitléir and Dr. Keegan for their presentations and the work they have done in this area.

I am concerned about some of the myths that abound. The review group's report shows that since 2009 the total number of doctors, including junior doctors, has increased from slightly over 7,000 to more than 9,400, an increase of 33% increase. In the same period, the number of consultants increased by more than 1,000. The number of consultants has, therefore, increased by approximately one third. I agree with what Dr. de Buitléir said about the excellent Hanly report. Many of Hanly's recommendations need to be implemented much faster.

This morning we discussed the idea of private practice being take out of the public hospital system. I have no problem with that idea. The number of outpatient appointments in public hospitals stands at approximately 3.5 million per annum. As such, around 63,000 people attend outpatient appointments each week. The review group's report states that 1,333 consultants have access to private rooms on site only and 600 consultants have access to rooms off-site in private hospitals and clinics. This means nearly 2,000 of more than 3,000 consultants do some form of private practice. Let us take a consultant employed in the public system who also sees 20 patients a week privately. If we average that figure over 2,000 consultants, it equals 40,000 appointments per week. Taken over 52 weeks, we have 2 million appointments per annum. Could the public system with its current structure absorb an extra 2 million outpatient appointments?