Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I have given Deputy Rabbitte the timescale. Obviously, the timescale to complete the entire process will take several weeks after 17 May so the answer is that it cannot be concluded in the short term because that could run for quite some period. That does not take from the fact that I agree with the initiative. In my view, public hospitals should be for the benefit of public patients. Forty per cent of the activity of public hospitals should not be taken up by private systems, involving private operations and people in private beds, that are taking away the ability of public patients to get into hospitals. That is the current system.

Regarding co-located hospitals on some of the sites, we have about 50 hospitals in the State. We are talking about half a dozen sites. A number of the other hospitals already have co-located private hospitals such as St. Vincent's Hospital and the Mater hospital where they work in co-operation with each other. I have listened to the consultants in many of these hospitals where there is total agreement among the consultants and medical staff on the co-located hospitals in a range of these areas. An area where there might not be agreement is that some other private hospitals would rather private beds came out of the public hospitals and went to their private hospitals, which is a different matter. That might be an argument around——

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