Mr. Seán Murphy:

One other point on outsourcing is about levelling the playing field. There has to be better treatment of the VAT differential between governmental provision of services and private sector provision of services. There has to be some means by which the subsidy applying to pricing for a service delivered by a public service - VAT not paid - versus a service delivered by the private sector, is clawed back or balanced out. That 27% jump is a massive issue. For instance, we do not believe that the health service which employs more than 130,000 staff is not ripe for vast amounts of really well-targeted outsourcing. We cannot believe that is the case. Every investment in computing power in the health service would make a return in spades. We argue that the price differential between the use of private hospitals for standard operations such as hip replacements compared with the public sector counterparts is off the scale. These are areas in which we cannot afford to continue as we are. So long as Ireland is borrowing €1.5 billion a month, we are vulnerable to a twist in our reputation. We have to close that gap and we have to keep our feet to the fire, collectively, as a society.