Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I was making the point in reply to Deputy Higgins that in a public hospital, where there are public beds in public wards and other beds are designated private, it would make better use of the management and the medical and nursing provision if those beds were designated public in their entirety. When consultants operate in private wards, which is what they want to do, and which is the service wanted by a huge proportion of the population, they can do so in private hospitals.

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