Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Obviously the trust is a potential future state. At the moment, the trusts comprise groups. One will be familiar with the broad construct of the groups, I imagine. At the moment, the only additional cost relates to the group management team in place. In other words, there is a group chief executive, group director of nursing, group clinical director and group finance officer. There is also a human resources element. Those posts have all been sanctioned by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We can provide the Chairman with the breakdown of the additional costs related to them. The intention is that, over time, those will be netted off by reductions in other posts within the hospital groups. It is a transitional cost, as it were. There is no particular additional cost but one hospital group embarked on something of a rebranding exercise. Others have not done so and we do not intend that they should, beyond minor adjustments to letterheads as they are renewed in the ordinary course. Therefore, the only additional cost of hospital groups should be the transitional cost of bearing an additional layer of management while the old layer is delayered, as it were. Over time, the intention of the policy is that the rationalisation of resources within hospital groups will provide for both better clinical quality and better use of resources and, therefore, more effective use of resources.