Ms Laverne McGuinness:

They were interested primarily in the level of savings we have set out in our service plan this year and how we are delivering on them. A report is presented to the Cabinet on an ongoing basis, which sets out the totality of the savings to be delivered under Croke Park I, such as the €106 million. A significant level of savings is also to be delivered from the Primary Care Reimbursement Service, PCRS. The troika was interested in hearing how we are delivering those savings. They were very interested in hearing about the savings on drugs and the potential for further savings in that area. They were also interested in the ESRI report and this was the subject of a separate meeting before the general meeting in regard to finances.

Our message on the finance side was that we are currently on track in terms of the moneys for this quarter, but that there are significant challenges in terms of the savings to be delivered over the course of the next month. However, we were delivering on target and adhering to the programme we had set out.