Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That brings me to a point I want to make. I am so conscious of time. Obviously, people seem to have forgotten again that there was a pandemic raging. We were told we could not use our hospitals by NPHET. One cannot be blamed for adhering to public health advice. We need to be conscious of the fact that members of the public, including my family and others I know well, were choosing to avoid going to hospitals if they could. This was not based on good medical choice. We forget so quickly that at the stage we were at a few weeks ago, people would not have accessed a medical facility even if there had been all the capacity in the world because they were genuinely terrified. "Terrified" is the right word for it. Thankfully and gratefully, because of what is happening now in our country, a certain level of normality is returning, and we are seeing that capacity.

I agree that a cost–benefit analysis could not have been achieved when trying to do a deal so fast. Does the open cost Mr. Breslin has for the private hospitals reflect the capacity level at which they are being used?