James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)

In respect of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, we dealt with this issue when CHI was before us. The position of the National Treatment Purchase Fund with regard to how its moneys have been used is that it relied on the governance controls in every hospital that received those moneys. In Mr. McCarthy's opinion, all things being equal, should the National Treatment Purchase Fund have done more to probe where its moneys were being spent?

In very simple terms, the allegations seem clear in the hospitals that are under investigation that, essentially, moneys were given to those hospitals and they were not used in accordance with the way they were supposed to be used and how they have drawn down those moneys. What is the obligation on the National Treatment Purchase Fund, even from its board's perspective, to ensure that the moneys that go into those hospitals are spent in accordance with the way in which they have been given those moneys?