Dr. Adele Bergin:

On the health question, both jurisdictions are poor performers when compared with the OECD. Dr. Barrett mentioned the attachment to the NHS. It is very important to remember that there are four versions of the NHS. The performances of NI relative to the NHS in the other regions is quite different.

Some of these gaps have gotten quite large in more recent years such as the more recent waiting list data. A colleague of ours, Dr. Sheelah Connolly, has talked about waiting times for various things. While we have an issue with waiting lists in the South, Northern Ireland has pulled away massively compared with the South or the rest of the UK. There is a huge job to be done to get basic information out there and to keep those facts and tables up to date and relevant. These perceptions just do not stand up when compared with data.