Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

Yes, but do I see co-operation and enthusiastic engagement with that yet? No. The €40 million is additional once-off funding for the voluntary hospitals and is specifically for Beaumont Hospital, the Mater hospital, St. Vincent's hospital and Tallaght hospital. The allocation is roughly equal between them. We have 16 voluntary hospitals that are, as the Cathaoirleach said, entirely or nearly entirely funded by the public purse and taxpayer. All the staff are public servants and must align themselves with the needs of the State in terms of financial management reporting so that we can achieve better savings in procurement and to ensure the taxpayers' money is being used in the way we expect it to be used. It comes with that contingency or conditionality the Cathaoirleach has described but that has happened before. This has been in the service level agreement, SLA, for some time. It is fair to say that, throughout the 2025 period, it has been a source of considerable frustration to the Department and HSE that there has not been more enthusiastic adoption of IFMS by the voluntary hospitals. It is perplexing because these are entirely publicly funded.