Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

In addition to being unsafe, it is significantly more costly, because the fallback position is that the HSE will hire private ambulances. Rather than pay some operatives in the local area overtime, it will incur not only the cost of the two operatives in the ambulance, but the cost of the private ambulance itself. It is a substantially increased cost and it makes no sense.

In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, tax exemptions for developers of private hospitals cost the State €10 million. We are all aware of how €10 million could be spent. Such an amount could not be found for the cervical cancer vaccine programme. It was found and then cancelled. However, in this case a preference is given to developers of private hospitals, which is alarming and I am concerned that this is the case.

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