Dr. Suzanne Crowe

So there is money coming from... Yeah, the hospitals depend on the income from the private insurers.

I mean, I'm sure he's looking for that private income to the hospital to be accounted for and to be replaced by the Department of Health.

It would not be good for patient care if that funding hole was not left filled.

The other issue is that there's many other state services that are subsidised in the same way, like education, as Pete said.

It is a model.

There is a small amount of private care goes on in some private clinics, but it's very small.

That is correct.

There is a huge problem with culture and psychological safety within the health service and Transparency Ireland's figures back that up.

The Protected Disclosure Act is most commonly accessed by people working in healthcare.

That's very worrying.

The guards, I think, might follow next.

But it just means that people in healthcare don't feel safe to speak up and that is a worry for patient care.

I do think that's correct.

What are they afraid of?

Because very quickly they find that they are made the problem.

So rather than the problem that they're highlighting being actioned on, they themselves become the problem and are sidelined and very often find that they...

lose a lot of support and when they do make a protected disclosure, lose their job would seem to be the outcome, particularly in the media accounts most recently.

So if you were thinking of speaking up, that's a very powerful negative message to receive.

Yes, I have been asked about raising issues, particularly when I previously worked in the Medical Council.

And I would encourage people to use the legal protection there.