Mr. Jim Breslin:

Different economic analyses were done and both the HSE and my Department did financial analyses. We took advice from NewERA, which is part of the National Treasury Management Agency. As we were dealing with the private sector and a commercial sector, we specifically went to NewERA to see what would be the approach. In each case we looked at different options for reimbursement mechanisms. For example, we could have used the National Treatment Purchase Fund schedule of fees but we chose a cost recovery model. Had we used the National Treatment Purchase Fund schedule, there would have been a very significant level of uncertainty because we were not able to specify in advance the schedule of services that we would need over the course of April. It was just too unpredictable. The model we went with, based on all that option appraisal, was the cost recovery model. The HSE has independent advisers in operating that model to validate and verify costs before final payments are made.