Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes, it is, but if we are doing so on an evidential basis or if the PwC report finds, as the Deputy and I have discussed at great length throughout nine hours of questioning at the health committee over two days, it is possible to do so without doing what the Deputy and I, and the House, do not want to do, which is to reduce the clinical benefit of it. We could reduce costs easily by providing fewer theatres and less equipment but that is not what the Deputy wants to do and I know that is not what he means. That is not what I want to do either, or what the House wants to do. If it is possible to reduce costs, we will not be found wanting in terms of vigorously pursuing that. We have reflected that explicitly, at the Deputy's invitation to do so, in the terms of reference of the PwC report.

I have said previously in this House, and I will repeat it lest it be lost in the noise of this debate from time to time, that if the PwC report indicates that there was wrongdoing or a failure on behalf of professional firms to do what they should have done, or anything like that, we will pursue vigorously those firms through the contracts that we, as a State, through the NPHDB, have with them. There may be other ways to do it. If people made significant errors, we will make sure they are held to account and we will use the full rigor of the law to make sure that is a reality.

See this speech in context