asked the Minister for Health the reasons for the proposed exclusion of consultant care and advice from the proposed free health care clinics.

The following are the principal reasons why consultants' fees are not included in the proposed extension of free hospital services: (1) I believe, and in this I am supported by international experience, that Irish medicine will benefit from retaining a balanced mixture of public health service and private practice. (2) Persons who will not be entitled to the services of hospital consultants without charge, that is those with incomes of £5,000 a year or more, will be paying a smaller percentage of their total income on health contributions than those at lower income levels. (3) Negotiations with the medical profession on a new contract for hospital consultants have been based on an acceptance of the principle of retaining a reasonable element of private practice. (4) Even if provision were made whereby consultants' fees incurred by persons in the upper income group would be paid through public funds, it is reasonably certain that the great majority of these persons would still choose to have private treatment. This contention is supported by the fact that the Voluntary Health Insurance Board at present provide insurance cover for more than 20 per cent of the population. Making such provision could therefore lead to a waste of public funds. (5) The Voluntary Health Insurance Board are extending and improving their services to facilitate persons who wish to take out insurance against these charges.

Is it not a retrograde step on the part of the Minister to extend the scope of private practice for consultants? Did the Minister have to do this? Did he volunteer to do it or was he compelled to do it?

The simple answer to that is that I am not doing so.

In public beds?

I am not doing so. The new scheme which I am proposing to bring in next April is, in my view and in the view of most objective interested observers, a very progressive one.

In which the private practice, which should not exist in any proper national scheme, is being extended. The consultants will make more money now than they ever did.

The Deputy and I will never agree on the fundamental approach to this matter. I believe that the best interests of the people would be served by a judicious mixture of public and private practice.

The Minister was blackmailed into this.

I was not.