Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

One of the complexities for the HSE is its sheer size and scale, and as the Deputy alluded to, the breadth of its activities which cover most citizens in some shape or form and there are very few services across health and personal social care that we do not provide. The intention is to get north of €2.2 billion worth of procurable spend up to and then beyond 80% compliance, which would be good or best practice. What is involved in that is drawing up a large number of procurement contracts or frameworks or both in the coming years. The director general has explained what frameworks are. To put the issue in some context, on average in recent years we are losing just north of €100 million worth of contracts every year in terms of them coming out of date.

Our aim is to make a net gain of €300 million to €400 million a year, which means we have to put in place €400 million to €500 million a year in contracts over the next number of years. As we sit here today, we have roughly €1.1 billion under contract. We are trying to get north of the €2.2 billion mark by making up the roughly €100 million a year which we lose due to contracts expiring and exceeding that by €300 million to €400 million in net terms. That leaves us with €400 million or €500 million a year in contracts. There is significant work in that, which is why we have made the investment in the additional 45 staff in sourcing, which is the part of our procurement team that does contracts and procurement frameworks.