Mr. James Cosgrave:

There is some inter-referral, absolutely, but such cases are very much in the minority. In most of the population centres where there is good access to private facilities, patients tend to be referred into those. As to the reason for the decrease in the number of licences, if I may backtrack again to 2002, we are talking about only three X-ray apparatus licensed to chiropractors at that time. It grew to 18 at one point. It has now decreased again to 11. X-ray apparatus is expensive. It is a facility that must be very well maintained, it is absolutely not cheap and, for many people starting practices, if there is a very good private provider run by radiologists in the locale that is willing to accept referrals when justified, that is a very good situation to have. There has been greater reliance on MRI in recent years as well, so many chiropractors now favour MRI. This trend will increase, although I do not see a time when X-ray will ever be obsolete as a diagnostic tool. It has been used by doctors and chiropractors for over 100 years and will continue to be so, although I think the numbers of chiropractors even seeking X-ray licences will come down. Under the new regulations, obviously, we might not even have that capacity.