Mr. Fergal Black:

As a general principle, as the director general said, we provide equivalence of care. That means we expect anybody who comes into custody should have access to the same level of healthcare he or she would have with a medical card under the General Medical Services scheme.

I will be clear that we have had people who applied for private medical care while they were in custody. As a general rule, we do not facilitate that. Let us imagine a scenario where somebody is considered to be high profile or whatever and has the means; we are not in a position to facilitate private care. We are clear that people should get the same level of care they would expect with a medical card. That probably cuts into the Senator's question. If somebody applies to us for something and is going through the normal healthcare process, we would look to see whether we could facilitate that. If it were a private thing, however, we probably would not.