Mr. Liam Woods:

I thank Mr. Swords. The follow-on question, by Deputy Healy, was about what safeguards are in place. I have spoken a bit about the control environment, but it might be useful to refer to the creation of hospital groups and community health organisations. I shall ask Mr. Lynch, in view of his experience as chairperson of a hospital group, to make some comments.

In terms of what we are doing, we have a single national procurement organisation that has a duty to create and maintain a rule set and provide a service to multiple entities - hospital groups - and support them in their need. As well as compliance, access to goods and services is a critical component of procurement. Logistics operations are another major aspect of what it does: warehousing and delivery to wards, theatres and such. In terms of improving the accountability environment, members will be aware that the creation of hospital groups is a step forward in providing distributed accountability and responsibility at a more local level while maintaining a national procurement approach to ensure best value. I may ask Mr. Lynch to say a word or two about that in terms of his experience.