Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The HSE is on the schedule for 24 October. I had drawn a circle around the payment because the €1.7 million paid in respect of private income was something that jumped out at me when I saw it this week. My understanding is that all consultants are now on an 80:20 contract and they must spend 80% of their time doing public work and 20% on private work. All new consultants coming into the public system are signed up to 100% public work, in an effort to try to remove the private work out of public hospitals. We should ask a question of the HSE in preparation for our meeting on 24 October. Perhaps the Comptroller and Auditor General could answer a question on the €1.37 million in respect of the loss of private work. Did the matter go to court and was there a settlement outside the court process or on the steps of the court? It would be interesting to know how that came about. We should ask a question about it. I suggest that we ask the secretariat to write to the HSE in preparation for the meeting to find out if there was a court settlement or a settlement prior to a court hearing. We could ask if there were any legal proceedings or if it was just accepted that a consultant was owed €1.37 million for the loss of private earnings within a public hospital.