Dr. Tony O'Connell:

That is a matter for the group's chief executive officer, Gerry O'Dwyer, who will be overseeing how all the services between the hospitals in the group will interface with one another and how they will share rosters for the specialists. Cork itself is challenged in terms of its ability to mobilise staff. Clearly, the hospital groups give us a framework within which this is much easier to occur than previously. One thing I did last week was to issue a directive to all hospitals in Ireland that all future consultants must be appointed not to an individual hospital but to the entire group, in order that we can make the most use of this resource and get the economies of scale that come from having people who will work across hospitals. In practical terms, this is challenging because of distances between and limitations within hospitals. However, the idea - certainly this manifestation of it - is to make the most use of this resource. Perhaps I can get Gerry O'Dwyer to provide more information to both the Deputy and me on precisely how he envisages this working over the next year.