Mr. Bernard Gloster:

Last week, I was aware of the comments by a group of consultants and by the GP body there, and of the response of the Saolta Group. Significant questions of public confidence arise in that type of narrative and debate. That is not to say that anybody is wrong. I am satisfied the level of concern requires us to have a level of assurance nationally. On Sunday, in fact, I asked the chief operations officer to deploy the performance management improvement team to Letterkenny, not just to the hospital but obviously to the local community services because we have to do both together, to see if we can assist them.

We need to see if we can arrive at a collective agreement between GPs, consultants and staff in the community and hospitals as to the best we can do with what we have. There is room for improvement in that regard. That is commencing this week. It might take a couple of days for them to land on the ground.