Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With the benefit of hindsight, I do not think that any of us would have done it the way it was done. Together with the Deputy, I was highly critical of the deal at the time and sought for it to be ended early. I did not think it was the best way to proceed and am firmly and repeatedly on the record to that end. Even at the time, however, I was saying that it was easy for me to say that and a review will be done. Inevitably, it will show that with the benefit of hindsight, were one doing it again, it would be done differently. Indeed the conversations that we are having with the private hospitals now are not about simply taking over their hospitals and that is because of what was learned the last time. One would probably do it on a pay-for-use basis and this would seem to me to be the sensible way to do it. Again we have to be very cognisant of the environment at the time. We were all looking at the television and seeing car parks in Italian hospitals with patients who were very sick. The HSE, the Department and the Government at the time did what was required to secure that capacity instantly.