Mr. Tom Byrne:

In regard to the figure of €82 million for pensions, under the employment control framework the HSE estimated that 3,500 people were going to retire over the year. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The number of retirements fell to fewer than 100 per month and, as those who retired had shorter periods of service, it was not necessary to spend the amount provided. Similarly, as no notice period is required for retirement it becomes difficult to estimate when people will decide to retire. People can retire on pre-Haddington Road agreement rates until August 2014. The remaining funds allocated for pensions may be requested to be written back because people were not retiring.

In regard to the Haddington Road agreement and the decrease in agency payments, I do not have the exact figure but the monthly reviews of accounts indicate a decrease in agency hours. On foot of discussions with our colleagues in the Departments of Health and Public Expenditure and Reform, we have established a team comprising front line people under my colleague, Mr. Colum Maddox, who are experts in hospitals and rostering, along with a representative from the human resources department and each of the service areas. The team's sole function over the next several months will be to visit hospitals to review individual rosters to ensure we are getting the maximum from Haddington Road in a safe and secure manner.

With regard to the question on integrated financial services, I commenced this role six months ago. I brought in people with experience in this area and we are currently commencing the roll-out of the programme. Over the next 12 weeks we will be preparing our business case for submission. We intend to reduce the number of direct reporters in finance to a core team in order to deliver on our aims. We have 12 weeks to prepare an integrated plan which will incorporate the new role of CFO across the HSE.

With regard to the sensible question on debt collection and debt at risk, this is something I took on personally several months ago. As the Minister indicated, there has been a substantial fall-off. I began by specifically examining at risk income. At that stage income at risk with two of the health care providers amounted to €6 million. That figure is now down to €3,000 because we visited the hospitals and set up an internal team to address the issue. As the Minister noted, however, while the proportion of claims awaiting consultant action dropped from 36% to 29% by August 2013, and continues to drop because we are having the required impact internally in the HSE, the proportion of claims awaiting payment from insurers has increased from 33% to 37% and claims pending have increased from 18% to 21%. The reasons for this increase relate to issues that have arisen with health care providers. The HSE does not have a service level agreement with private insurers because they deal directly with clients. Hospitals have identified significant problems in that they do not have a direct point of contact with insurance companies.