Professor Damian McCormack:

On paper, it sounds like a good idea. I have significant problems with engaging the private sector for children and I have not done so. I could have done it but I have not done it. Mr. Green and I have spoken about this at length. As we have not engaged the private sector, we have been forced to create another solution in our locality, and that solution is Cappagh Kids, which is a sustainable and brilliant public development. We are not at the behest of the private sector. I remind the Deputy that all of the private hospitals are not really hospitals; they are vehicles for speculation. I have a big problem with that because they are potentially transient. They could be sold by the French power company that owns them or by Denis O'Brien, etc. They could be gone overnight. They are not sustainable and they are extremely expensive. Frankly, I could make a fortune doing private paediatric work on a National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, system in a private hospital but, as I stated, paediatric orthopaedics requires a particular type of individual who has a social contract and a social conscience. We are not doing what the Deputy has suggested, but we might be forced into doing it.