At our meeting on 5 November 2009, Professor Drumm, the chief executive officer of the HSE, promised to supply the committee with details of the level of private practice of consultants on a consultant by consultant basis. This week we received anonymised data from the HSE in respect of 1,633 consultants working in our public hospitals. We have calculated, based purely on a study of the figures supplied, that at least one in four consultants are in breach of contract. We will be taking up this issue with the HSE on 4 March.
We were also contacted by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, IHCA, on this matter and we have asked for a submission on the issue of the implementation of the new 2008 consultant contract. I look forward to hearing the views of the IHCA on this as it is a matter the committee intends to pursue vigorously to ensure those who are paid from the public purse and in many cases have large outpatient and inpatient waiting lists, deliver on the contract which they signed. We will pursue the matter on 4 March.
Our agenda for next Thursday is the Comptroller and Auditor General special report No. 66 on FÁS, which relates to promotion and advertising. We will also deal with Comptroller and Auditor General special report No. 73 dealing with controls and governance in FÁS.