Mr. John Swords:

It will bring about savings. As I said earlier, we have brought about savings of €250 million to date. Our target this year is €30 million of which we have achieved €25 million, so we are on target this year. I caution against savings because savings come in different ways and also because the medical devices, and the medical area that we have charge of now across the public sector, will be affected by sterling, the dollar and currencies. We expect that will be a hard battle for us on which to hold the line. We have managed to do it to date but I think the savings are going to get harder.

In any procurement organisation, and particularly the transition that we have taken since 2010, the approach would be that one would harmonise the pricing across the organisation, put frameworks in place which we have done to a large degree, start working on one's contracts and from that one derives savings. From there one has to start looking at how one does one's work and that is where we will be concentrate our efforts from herein. We will look at the specifications that are there on current contracts and, thereafter, we might be made to make adjustments. Companies may come to us with difficulties, which they have already started to do, and say to us that they are suffering a cost increase on their costs and want us to absorb those. We are not funded for cost increases. We are funded for a delivery of service. Therefore, we have to look with them at bringing savings in different ways. The only way one can do so is by maybe looking at specifications.