The Minister did not answer my question about the two-tier health service. I have no obsession with seeking to build hospital beds but rather I have an obsession to ensure that an existing private hospital will continue in operation and not be closed down. Has the Minister had an application to allow VHI participation in the ownership of Calvary Hospital in Galway city? Did he refuse that application recently and, as a result of that refusal, is that hospital now facing closure with redundancy for the staff, nurses——

I am not able to stop the Deputy but he is introducing a specific question into a general one.

We do not want to lose beds. We want to hold on to what we have.

It is important to point out that the hospital was not funded at all by the health service. It was owned privately.

Yes, it is a private hospital.

Calvary Hospital is owned by an order of religious nuns.

There is nothing wrong with that. The Minister may not like them but there is nothing wrong with religious nuns.

I resent that particularly obnoxious remark. The nuns decided themselves that they would no longer run this hospital.

That is right.

This is all out of order.

I had no proposal from the VHI or anyone else, least of all the health board, to take over this hospital. Across the road from the hospital is Merlin Park Hospital. The health board have a large regional hospital. There are enough acute hospital beds in Galway paid for out of public funds. The health board have made no suggestion to me that they take over that hospital.

What about the VHI taking it over themselves?

They made no approach to me either.

I did not refer to the health board. I asked the Minister if he had an application to give permission to the VHI to participate in the ownership of Calvary Hospital — in other words, the purchase of it from the nuns along with the group who got together in Galway? They wanted the VHI and the VHI agreed to participate in it provided they got ministerial sanction.

There are people who will build nursing homes, hospitals, private and otherwise, all shapes and sizes, provided taxpayers' money goes into them and they get the benefit of that. I have had no approach from the VHI in this matter. Under the 1957 Act the VHI have no statutory authority to invest in any hospital. Any such investment could not be made without an amendment of that Act.

That is what the question is about. It is about amending legislation. The Minister says he has no approach from or on behalf of the VHI to allow them to participate in the proposal for the take-over and operation of Calvary Hospital.

No, I have had none whatever that I am aware of.

The Minister says that I cannot proceed further, but the story in Galway is different. Emergency meetings of the staff have been held to consider the Minister's refusal.

The staff are not employed by the health board or by the Department of Health.

I did not say they were. The Minister has an obsession with the health boards. He only wants to see a one-tiered health service and that is a public service. He sees no role for the private contribution to the health service, which has been outstanding. Religious orders and other concerned groups looked after the health and care of the people long before the Deputy became a Minister, and hopefully they will continue to give such service long after the Minister has gone.

That is completely out of order. In what some people might regard as the good old days, when I came into the House this question would have been answered by the Minister saying one sentence: "The Minister has no such proposals". No supplementaries would have been allowed.

We will come back to that one again.