Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Thanks. I want to clarify something because statements were made here earlier that are grossly unfair to our healthcare professionals. It was suggested, not by our witnesses, that private patients going into accident and emergency departments in Ireland would receive more favourable treatment than non-private patients. To the best of my knowledge that is absolutely untrue and would be a grossly unfair and scurrilous thing to say about our emergency medicine healthcare professionals and all the other healthcare professionals in our hospitals. I believe that was implied pretty directly earlier on in the committee and from my perspective, that is fundamentally untrue. If one walks into one of our accident and emergency departments, he or she can sign the form to indicate he or she has private insurance or not, but our healthcare professionals will treat them regardless. I just wanted to state that. What was said earlier on-----