Mr. Connor Green:

I want to spend time building a relationship with families. We are not treating a child as a once-off condition and then they move on. It is an entire childhood that we treat. Further to the questions in regard to outsourcing care, this is where that becomes impossible. We have built a relationship with these families. These children, unfortunately, have a morbidity and a mortality risk around the time of surgery, and these are complex cases of children who cannot go out of the State for care.

With regard to trying to speed things on in that regard, the public sector has to be the beachhead. We have to have a sustainable public service before we try to clear the waiting lists in the private sector and overseas. There is no point in clearing a waiting list which then re-accumulates. We must resource it.

In terms of the children's hospital and the question of staffing, it is important to understand that the plan is that while Temple Street and Crumlin will no longer exist in their current form, Cappagh will continue as part of the paediatric group, and both the board and the executive in Children's Health Ireland, CHI, have had this presented to them. Ms Hardiman has been a consistent supporter of that. Let us be clear that any capital investment in Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital Dublin will still be there and it will not just be a short-lived solution.