Ms Josephine Ryan Leacy:

No. To reassure the Deputy, we have management accounts for every director within the hospital. Whether it is a matter of surgery or the ED, we can look at both pay and non-pay. We view that on a monthly basis and we see where the trends are. A lot of our funding is actually fixed and outside our remit, because it is a matter of pay. We look at what we can manage. Our non-pay element is quite tight. We absolutely have very tight processes. We go through the frameworks that we can go through in relation to non-pay, so we do not feel there is a lot of meat left on the bones in relation to non-pay. To put it in context, our medication cost has risen from €42 million in 2019. We are now spending €82 million per year on medications alone. If you put an implantable device into somebody’s heart, you will note the cost has gone up 43% with inflation. I refer to non-pay costs. However, to reassure the committee, we absolutely scrutinise our pay and non-pay.