Mr. Simon Nugent:

That is correct. There were questions about how the NTPF operated but things have moved on a lot since then. In particular, one can look to the whole area of activity-based funding and the efforts that have been made within the Department and the public system to work out costs and so forth. At the end of the day, our hospitals would have no difficulty standing up and competing for the delivery of services because we believe we provide value for money.

I will now address Deputy Kelly’s numerous questions. We also have a bee in our bonnet around the question of ICT. Relatively recently the association set up a new working party of the chief information officers of all of the hospitals to make sure that we are working as closely as possible with the e-health agenda of the HSE. Mr. Richard Corbridge has appeared before this committee. He has also met our working party a couple of times since it was set up. A key part of the integration process is to make sure that all-----