Mr. Dean Sullivan:

As for my colleagues, John Connaghan was appointed at the same time as me. Colm Henry's post is an interim post of chief clinical officer, but the intention is that that will be run publicly later this year. That is my understanding. All of that will be run through a formal Public Appointments Service, PAS, process. As I said, if the Chairman or Deputy Buckley need any further information about this, I am happy to furnish it, but as a process it is, as one would expect and wish it to be, a very comprehensive one.

Regarding some of Deputy Buckley's frustrations and the role of the centre, for the absolute avoidance of doubt - and I know I speak on behalf of my colleagues here - the Deputy may think we are trying to be obtuse or not to give straightforward answers, but we are absolutely not. Sometimes we just cannot give straightforward answers to the questions asked because there is no straightforward answer to them. However, it would be wrong for him to assume that this is us trying to be clever or obtuse or to talk around the subject. We are not. Equally, it would be wrong for him to think we do not absolutely, categorically have patients at the absolute centre of all we do. Sometimes there is a risk with conversations like these that we get lost in the undergrowth of very small detail and miss some of the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the point I made earlier. The question is whether €15 billion is enough to provide the health and social care services that the population of Ireland wants and needs. I am too soon in the job to reach a definitive view on that. I see areas where there is definitive pressures within the system. Doctor numbers are definitely light in Ireland compared to elsewhere in Europe. I am not sure at present whether €15 billion is enough. Even if we park that as an issue, I think the proportion of spend on specialist mental health services is too low within that overall side of things. The manifestation of this is that within particular areas of service - and CAMHS is a key one, clearly, but there are others as well - the extent of patient need exceeds our capacity to respond to that need.