Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

As general comment first of all, it is unfortunate the discussion happens in the context of the horse having bolted, with the Minister and the Government having taken the decision to effectively return to what looks like a two-tier health service, combined with a supercharged NTPF. That looks like where they are going. It seems to suggest that it is not okay to treat people according to wealth when they have the coronavirus, but it is okay to do so when they have cancer, heart disease, or depression. Instead of going backwards, we should be going forwards to a national one-tier public health service.

I refer to the details of the deal with the private hospitals. I was a critic of it, and I thought it appeared extremely expensive. I agree when Mr. Varley says that it represents very poor value for money. His basis for that is primarily based on usage, that is, there is a huge amount of excess capacity and we are only using a certain number of beds, therefore it is very expensive per bed used. However, according to the figures published in Britain on the deal between the NHS and private hospitals, even on a per-bed basis, regardless of usage, the deal looks very expensive. In Britain, the average cost per bed is about €10,000 per month, whereas in Ireland it is about €44,000 per month. Has Mr. Varley any insight into why the deal appears, on a per-bed basis, appears to be so expensive?