Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

There is a misunderstanding. The hospital does not get a fee for every private patient who goes into a public hospital. A hospital only gets a fee for a patient if he or she is in a designated bed and only approximately 20% of beds are private beds. Sometimes half the numbers of patients in a hospital can be private patients but the hospital does not get any fee for them. It can only charge the insurer for the people in the designated private beds. That is a fact. The doctor on the other hand can get a fee regardless of where a patient is located. We sought to eliminate some of the perverse incentives that existed. I make no apology for saying that if taxpayers fund a public hospital in the State, pay for the capital infrastructure, pay for all the staff and the diagnostics then there should not be preferential treatment for one class of citizen over another.

The reliance on consultants is being reduced all the time. Out of a €16 billion budget, by any standards the amount spent on outside consultants is relatively small. We do not have all the expertise in the public sector. It is not uncommon across the public sector in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, including the Netherlands, for outside expertise to be recruited from time to time to advise and help. It would not be cost effective to have that expertise within the public system.

See this speech in context