Mr. Liam Woods:

To give the committee a sense of this in percentage terms, by far the largest amount of care that addresses waiting lists is provided in the public hospital system. I am talking about acute waiting lists. To give the committee a sense of this in monetary terms, the HSE is investing approximately €1.8 billion per year in its core elective activity. That includes day-case and inpatient work. A further €200 million is available under access to care, which we have discussed a little. That is also available for investment in the public system. The NTPF is investing €150 million, some of which is coming into the public system, for example, the cataract clinic in Nenagh. There are other examples of the NTPF buying within our system. In terms of scale, however, and without going into a lot of numbers on patients treated, that is still marginal to the overall success but very important in hitting the targets for long-waiting patients. That is probably the best way to think about that. For us, the key is to enable our system to have the theatre access and the bed access to deliver on what is a growing commitment. The bulk of delivery is still in the public system. I heard Deputy Shortall's question about the growth and investment in commercial or private entities, and we can certainly respond to that. As the CEO has just said, the safety net arrangement, which is still running with the private system, sees approximately 1,800 bed days a week used in the private system for public patients. Of course, the intention of that was Covid response, and that arrangement will cease at the end of June. From our point of view, that is just an idea of the kinds of proportions involved.