Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is fine. I have a question for the witnesses from the National Treatment Purchase Fund. It was stated that one third of the work of the fund concerns securing public capacity. The problem we have, of course, is that if we continue to rely on the NTPF to solve the waiting lists, we are then effectively building up the private system and not dealing with the capacity issue in the public system. We are therefore continuing to add to a dysfunctional system of public versus private. There is also then the question of the costs. What would the witnesses say about the efficiency and costs of contracting out these needs when they should be in the public system?