Mr. Jim Breslin:

I am not sure that the discussion this morning on the 10,000 fully appreciates how difficult it will be to bring either public or private facilities back up to normal levels. There is no doubt that there will be issues in terms of getting back to the activity levels we saw in the past, not just in the public system but also in the private system.

I now turn to the Deputy's question as to whether that was done.

The options examined were whether there would be an extension until the end of August, which would allow those negotiations to take place across June, July or August, or whether the HSE would terminate the arrangement at the end of June, leaving us with the next four weeks to put in place an alternative arrangement that would continue to see public patients to access those facilities.