Mr. Tony O'Brien:

These two issues are slightly separate. The task force that I chair is on patient flow, to seek to limit the number of patients who are delayed post-admission and accommodated on trolleys in emergency departments, with a specific focus on this winter. I think the colleague that the Deputy referred to is Dr. Susan O'Reilly, the group chief executive of Dublin Midlands. The issues that she is dealing with across that group is how to ensure patient safety in all facets of all services and she expressed a view and is going through a process, as are all the group chief executives, of formulating strategies to optimise patient safety in services. There are, as the Deputy knows, arising from the Portlaoise report, certain issues about sustainability of emergency department services, ICU services, critical care services and so on in Portlaoise, which all need to be addressed in the same way as the maternity service issues have been addressed. She is working her way through that.