Dr. Anthony O'Connor:

Our position would have been that it was premature to abandon this deal before there was a proper roadmap for reopening the service for public patients as well, because their lives matter too.

People talk about a second surge and what might happen. They say we could have hundreds of people lying on trolleys, overburdened intensive care unit capacity and operating theatres closed for a month. That is January every year in the Irish health service. What could be coming if we do not address it could be apocalyptic. We need to find a solution. If we say the NTPF might be the solution, then we will have to use it in a way that we have never used it before, and we had better get started with it.

Deputy Shortall made the suggestion about putting some of this on a more permanent footing. That is another option but whatever we do we need to set about it fairly quickly.