Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

We have been engaging weekly with private hospitals on a national level at least since the middle of December. The local sites are also engaging. Separately, we know the Department is looking at a longer-term strategic arrangement. Again, this is not solely but substantially about the elective care side of it. The arrangements are functioning well at the moment and we are happy we have visibility of the beds and as individual public hospitals can engage extra private beds,we are authorising funding to do that.