Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope many of them have. I thank Mr. Gunning. I would like to ask about private patients. The Minister replied to a parliamentary question yesterday when I asked about taking private patients out of public hospitals. He said that other countries with strong public hospital systems do not tolerate the inefficiencies and perverse incentives that arise from having a stream of private patients. That is pretty unambiguous. The last time the committee discussed this, we found out that dedicated private facilities were being designed into the public children's hospital, which I think is perverse and should not happen. Since then, has the board had any instruction, since this has been debated in the Dáil and in committee? I do not think the public really knew that while on the one hand the Government was saying that it would take private facilities out, it was, on the other hand, designing them as part of the children's hospital and the maternity hospitals. Has the board had any instruction from the Government to not design in the private facilities?