Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I am not having a go but, with respect, the witnesses are making economic statements. If one is going to say not enough money is being spent on public healthcare, then one needs to be able to back that up. If the witnesses are not health economists, then they should not say it. I am not having a go. I am really trying to understand it.

The figures I see are that we are well above average in public spending per capitain healthcare. We need to figure out how it is we are spending so much money on healthcare but not getting what we quite rightly need, namely, fully staffed teams.

I am trying to understand if the Irish Medical Organisation believes the issue is the quantum of cash involved. I am very open to that being the case, but the figures I have seen do not back it up, or is it the case that Ireland spends well above the average on healthcare per person and that, therefore, we are not doing what the IMO rightly demands and needs - the right number of staff to treat patients?