Dr. Tony Holohan:

That is a fair point.

Regarding the hospital groups, as Dr. MacLellan said earlier, we see the licence being held at the hospital level and as close as possible to service delivery, with accountability applying at that level. As we move into hospital groups, more and more services will be organised at group level rather than hospital level, and it is a matter of trying to reflect this in the flexibility of a scheme that will have to operate not just now, but into the future. We, therefore, want hospitals to buddy up in respect of services that no one hospital provides safely on its own. For example, we should not be in a situation whereby a hospital that is too small to operate fully does not derive some benefit from the fact that it is part of a group with a larger hospital providing similar services and co-operation is not developed. The HSE's plans regarding hospital groups will take us into all that. The licensing arrangement should be supportive and reflective of that. That is the flexibility we want.

There are some other perhaps more technical points about some of what I have been saying and some of the other heads the Deputy asked about. I will ask Dr. MacLellan to pick it up from section 39Q if that is okay.