Ms Fiona Brady:

I thank the Deputy. On the perverse incentives that have been mentioned on numerous occasions regarding insourcing with third party providers - and it is not the normal payroll insourcing - from an NTPF perspective we have no oversight of consultant contracts or work schedules. That lies with hospital management. It lay with me when I was in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. If any consultant came to me with an initiative they wanted to apply to the NTPF for, I would review all the consultant contracts to ensure they had carried out all core activity, and everything else that could be done within the capacity of the organisation had been maxed out.