Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

Absolutely, that is the objective. We have a strong procurement function, although obviously responsibility for some of it was transferred to colleagues in the Office of Government Procurement. Within the limits of their overall capacity - we probably do not have enough - they engage in good procurement and produce good contracts. The issue concerns compliance with these contracts, an issue which Mr. Swords has covered to some extent. We have a distributed buying system. We have thousands of people who are buying product all the time; we do not have a single national system, either to facilitate this or to be able to readily track it. Some of what the director general outlined in his opening statement, in the brief we submitted and what Mr. Swords has covered is trying to deal with the awareness, communication and training aspects, but we can reassure the Deputy that procurement has a significantly higher profile as a control and reputational issue within the organisation in the past few years. We are clear that the public equates procurement with potential waste with the overall health service. It is a significant priority. We are not where we need to be yet, but the position is improving and must improve further in the next few years.