David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is fair. Once the contracts are in place, it would be the hope that those contracts would enable us to recruit more consultants, because that was one of the arguments that was made for a long time by those representative bodies. Maybe Mr. Mulvany will want to address that point. We have a lot of vacant positions and we know it can be difficult to recruit consultants. We know representative bodies have cited pay disparity issues going back to the pay cuts that were put in place many years ago that were never reversed, including the FEMPI cuts and so on. I would hope this contract would play an important part in allowing us to recruit more consultants. In the first instance, how hopeful are the witnesses that would be the case? If we can recruit more consultants into the system and if we can fill those vacant posts, what difference would that make in addressing waiting lists, in making better use of bed capacity, and all of those issues? This is a very important day for the health service that we have public-only contracts. Will the witnesses give us a flavour of that?

Mr. Watt spoke earlier about phasing out private healthcare from public hospitals. That will also have to involve, I would imagine, substituting more State funding for private activity. When will that work begin and what will that look like?