Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

In recent years, a number of the private hospitals have been in difficulties. We are now in a situation where more public work is being outsourced to private hospitals. It is quite ironic, when the aim was to bring in some of those private hospitals as public facilities.

I will move on to the points that were made earlier about theatres closing at 4 o'clock. If that is happening, it is outrageous. These are expensive facilities and the witnesses are talking about a whole lot of other facilities that are needed. With regard to existing facilities, if theatres are closing at 4 o'clock, what on earth are we doing?

Who in the Department or HSE is responsible for patient throughput in hospitals so that we effectively sweat the assets of our very expensive hospital facilities and ensure they are maximised? We are now seeing that all the time in the private sector. People have procedures at 8 p.m. or MRIs at 10 p.m. Who is responsible for ensuring we maximise the use of the existing facilities?