Mr. John Hennessy:

Our HR department has been doing extensive work with the regulators in respect of this issue and training. The feedback from that process does not reveal significant concerns in the short term but, obviously, there is a need to monitor any divergence in standards over the longer term. That will be a priority.

My colleague, Ms Keon, has been closely involved in dealing with the North-South relationships. Several joint workshops have been held with representatives of the health services in the North and in the South with a view to ensuring a seamless transition to the post-Brexit situation. They have addressed specific services such as those I mentioned in the opening statement where extensive agreements are in place. The agreements relating to cardiac, radiotherapy, paediatric cardiac and other services have been tested to ensure that they would withstand any kind of Brexit and we are satisfied that they will. We have been working on ensuring a seamless transition on the reimbursement issue and the funding implications in terms of issues such as the cross-border directive such that the current reimbursement arrangements or very similar will be maintained and patients will not be unduly discommoded.