Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

There will still be private patients in the public hospital system because they can be there as of right. I suggest that the Minister publish every scrap of evidence because she will need to make her case to the public and those working in the health service. She will admit that these are not privately funded hospitals but State-subsidised hospitals over which the State will have no direct control. Those hospitals could care for patients from Asia apart from those earmarked by the Minister. An entirely new business could be created and we will have no control over it. All we will have done is handed over a great deal of money, which could have been used to invest in the health service, to private for-profit organisations interested in making money.

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