Mr. John Swords:

One must look at the changes that have happened. For example, in 2010, we brought centralised procurement into the HSE. Before that it was health boards. So a whole culture is being changed. It is a change management issue. When one is bringing that in, one has to stage it in. Then, when one looks at the issues around austerity, what we were asked to focus on was actually saving money so that we could retain services. We had to go on that. Since 2010, we have had a further change in that the Government has made the decision that procurement will change again and it will move up a notch to address the public service issue overall, and what we are doing now, along with our colleagues, is changing in that regard as well. So there have been changes along the way, but there also has been progress. To give the impression that nothing has been done would be wrong, but I do think it is correct to acknowledge that the audit was right, and from the audit we will take the positive view in how we address it. What we have done to address it is to take contraction, and I think that is the point we should focus on.