Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I addressed that earlier with the Deputy's colleagues, and I am happy to do so again. I emphasise that we are at the commencement stage of a procurement process, so I do not want to stray across that either. Since the serious problems of last January and February, we have, with the support of the Department, continued to use 160 private hospital beds per day. That is outside of anything in the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF. That obviously comes at a serious cost. Bed cost in the private hospitals can be in the region of €1,500 per day. That is the scale of the cost.