Mr. Bernard Gloster:

If we were starting from a greenfield site in 2014, prior to my time, that would be the case and the Deputy's observation would be closer to being accurate. However, we have to look at the context from which residential care provision came. The extent of the growth of private provision is partly because the public sector, during more scarce times, did not invest in keeping public capacity at the level that was needed. That is the first aspect. The second point is that there has always been provision outside of the direct State provision. There has been voluntary sector provision by NGOs, many of which had their origins in the religious orders that provided residential care in the past. A large number of those organisations are no longer operating. There are still some NGOs providing a service but part of that need was filled by the private sector. When a State agency like Tusla is considering spending money on a service that it is not going to provide itself, EU procurement rules and all sorts of other rules, as we discussed, dictate that private providers are eligible to apply for that work. There is a history and context to this.