Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With regard to my question on the timescale, it was said the lifetime of the restructuring would be approximately 18 months. The two sentences that alarm me indicate there will be no closure of services, no change of location and no changes to the terms and conditions of staff during the lifetime of the restructuring programme. This infers there will be changes in all these areas after the completion of the restructuring programme. Otherwise, why would those sentences be included?

On my second question, I am not asking for the exact detail. Most of the complaints pointed out, such as a member of staff having a problem with his or her salary scale, are normally dealt with in every company in the country. There is not a SuperValu in the country that does not have a member of staff who believes he or she is on the wrong pay scale.

That is normal, and it goes on everywhere, but it is far-fetched to suggest that is the reason all the boards have to be closed down and all the companies dissolved.

We were told that weapons of mass destruction was the reason a war was waged on Iraq but when the war was over, no weapons of mass destruction were found. We do not want to be in a position where we are told there are many issues and, for that reason, this huge restructuring and the closing of all these boards is needed only to discover at the end of it that there was no reason for it. We do not want to be back here saying what a mess we made of it. We centralised the Health Service Executive, HSE, and many other organisations and they turned out to be a disaster. This programme is not broken. There is no reason to try to fix something that is not broken. That is my position, and I have yet to hear where these serious problems have been identified that require such a massive change.