James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Then the Minister disagrees with her Government colleagues who raised the matter at the Committee of Public Accounts. I do not accept what she said, in the sense that if a person is admitted under a particular consultant who is on-call on the night, who is a type A consultant, that patient will be a public patient and that income will be lost to the hospital. Time will tell which of us is right.

Let us consider what has happened in the past, especially in regard to other undertakings that have been given, such as, for example, the plan in 2008 to reduce the reliance on outside consultants. In 2007, a total of €16.45 million was spent in that area and the princely sum of €100,000 was saved in 2008. Can the Minister explain why additional funding for outside consultants is required when she has more than 113,000 people working in the HSE?

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