Mr. Thomas Lynch:

The hospital groups envisioned in the Higgins report, which was published in 2013, are in the process of being established. Over the last 12 months, we have been putting in place management teams for each of the six hospital groups. One is already in place, for the Children's Hospital Group. The sizes of the groups range from five hospitals to, in the case of the Ireland East Hospitals Group, 11 hospitals, one of which is St. Vincent's. They are a mix of voluntary hospitals and what we call statutory hospitals, that is, those hospitals operated and owned by the HSE. One hospital group in Galway, the Saolta group, is made up of only HSE hospitals. We are in the process of establishing the governance. We are working with the Minister for Health and the HSE on establishing boards for the groups, using the Health Act 2013 or other similar structures. The management teams that are forming will be getting to grips with providing more decentralised local management, bringing the best of what the level 4 hospitals provide to level 3 hospitals around the country. Part of that exercise will be managing procurement in association with the HSE and centralising those functions in the groups, together with the HSE, to ensure that we get the best value for public money. It is early days yet, but we are beginning to see effective management being provided across the hospital system to support the work of the HSE centrally.