Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. As this will be an ongoing issue, I would appreciate if she offered to communicate with the committee's Chairman to give figures for each of the CHOs to assess those numbers on an ongoing basis. This would be very useful. We will put down our own parliamentary questions anyway.

When the ombudsman was before the committee, he suggested without any ambiguity that some sort of a refund scheme could be established for those families who wished to procure private assessments. The Minister of State, in a parliamentary reply to me dated 30 October 2020, referred to a letter from Dr. Cathal Morgan in which it was stated that, in relation to Sláintecare funding, which is the €7.8 million provided on a once-off basis and which is time limited, the CHOs would engage with private providers in their areas to procure private assessments where appropriate.

Will the Minister of State provide us with a breakdown of the cost and the number of private assessments? As I understand it, the €7.8 million is not fully allocated or spent yet. To what extent is that funding being given over to private providers? Once that funding is spent, is there scope for families who wish to seek private assessments to get a refund? That would provide a massive alleviation because the €7.8 million will not cover the full extent of the demand. That is the point I am making.