Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

Quest Diagnostics has announced its intention to establish a facility in Ireland and it is in active discussions with a public facility here. The issue is one of quality, turn-around time and cost. It is not appropriate, as everyone accepts, including the professional representatives and the College of Pathology, that there are 44 centres in Ireland. There cannot be a quality-driven, quick turn-around, cost effective laboratory service in that scenario. Everyone has signed up for rationalisation of that.

The challenge for the public sector is to be able to compete with others, and I believe it has the capacity to do that in a tender. The HSE is in active discussions with the national finance agency about a public private partnership model for the provision of this service which we hope to advance during 2010.

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