Mr. Barry Lowry:

Yes, that is exactly how it would work. Even as regards the EU innovative procurement partnership, let us say it was used in a particular hospital for a particular service, it was extremely successful and the HSE wanted to roll out something like that at a national level. It would have to go straight to procurement because there would not be the headroom in that procurement initiative to allow a national use of the product. Hopefully, however, the position would be that the company involved would have learned enough during the pilot - the innovative procurement process - that it would be very well placed to put in a strong bid, which is what we want. Obviously, we procure by means of the EU procurement guidelines. However, we want Irish companies to be competitive and successful.