Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 115: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if there has been a value for money audit carried out on the National Treatment Purchase Fund; the outcome of same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42448/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has assured me of its commitment to ensuring value for money so that as many patients as possible are treated from the funding allocated to it. To this end the NTPF compares the prices which it pays with treatment costs in public hospitals and, where known, the prices being paid by health insurers to private hospitals.

The financial statements of the NTPF are subject to audit by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C & AG) on an annual basis. The Dáil Committee of Public Accounts, in its Third Interim Report on the 2006 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, noted that the C & AG has access to information (which cannot be disclosed publicly because it is commercially sensitive) about the prices paid by the NTPF for procedures undertaken in private hospitals. The Committee noted also that the C & AG has agreed to carry out a review of these areas as part of his ongoing audit of the NTPF's expenditure. In the circumstances I have no plans to undertake a separate value-for-money exercise in respect of the NTPF.