Mr. John Connaghan:

I will offer the Deputy some high-level thoughts in that regard and then ask Mr. Mulvany to offer his views. The previous director general intimated almost a year ago at the meeting of the committee in regard to the HSE financial statements for 2016 that it would take some time to bring all of the €2.2 billion of expenditure inside our appropriate procurement framework. We can see from the figures now available that significant progress has been made over the course of the past two years. Some €1.1 billion of contracts are inside the framework and provision has been made to increase that to €1.5 billion, which shows that work is continuing in that regard. We will confirm those figures shortly. Mr. Mulvany might have the figures for 2016 and be able to offer further information in that regard. I ask him to outline from where we have come and what we have done.