He believes that positive supply-side forces will continue to damp the impact of strong demand on output prices and that productivity gains will continue to damp the effect of higher wages on unit labor costs.
Hospital management, now concerned the acceptance of more referrals will have a detrimental effect on patient waiting times, have stopped the unit accepting new patients until at least March 2013.
The minister replied that a charge of up to 70p per unit could be imposed, and that the higher the price the greater the effect in combating the ill-effects of alcohol.