Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Thank you very much, Professor Pollock. I have one further question. You referred earlier to the geographic organisation of health services. In Ireland, the HSE is a national organisation, but it has recently reorganised the hospital sector into six hospital groups - these were referred to earlier - with some intention to move towards hospital trusts. At the same time, the primary and community care services are organised in nine different community health organisations. I would welcome your opinion on whether that is a viable way of organising services when there is no alignment between hospitals and primary and community services.