Clare Byrne

I suppose that the argument for maternity care was that there is no alternative, like there is no private maternity hospital since Mount Carmel closed in 2014.

So for women who wanted to go down that route, it was closed off for them as a result of this contract.

private work.

You're not buying that argument this removes choice for women who want a continuity of care who have decided they want that person and because that person is on the new contract they can't have them and they can't get them privately now.

I'm sure you read the piece by Gabrielle Colleran, President of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.

She was writing about this debacle in the Irish Times.

And she referred particularly to how the minister, Jennifer Carol McNeill, dealt with this.

She says it would have been better for her to have met the consultants, sought common ground with them, rather than to make that threat to withdraw funding.

What did you think of how the minister dealt with it?

But then you see you have the complication where the Rotunda say, we believed there was a clause in there to allow us to use our discretion when it came to people on this contract working privately in the Rotunda.

But the investment will need to come now to back this up.

Because we are very short, aren't we, of consultant obstetricians in this country.

Two million people in this country pay for it at the moment.

Now, in general terms, and you and I have been discussing sláinte care for longer than we both care to remember, it is moving very slowly.

But do you take heart that it is moving or do you think more could be done?

All right.

Well, Roisin, we may catch up with you again in time to see where you think things are at at that point.

Thank you very much for coming in.

That is Roisin Shortall.

And Newstalk's courts correspondent, Frank Graney, joins us from the Central Criminal Court this morning as the trial of Riyadh Bouchakar continues today.