Ms Susan Clyne:

Across the system, both public and private, attendance has dropped off. Appeals were made from emergency departments, GPs, consultants in various specialties and the Irish Cancer Society for patients to come back. Patients were not coming in.

In terms of value for money, had we had the surge and had we required those ICU beds and ventilation spaces, we would not be querying the value for money. The decision had to be made. It is only now, as we move out of that time and phase from having the surge, that we can see what value for money could have been delivered in the context of the agreement with the private hospitals. We had not been able to test that.