Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With respect, I do not believe Mr. Mulvany is answering the question.

On savings, there was what appears to be a made up number, the €347 million. Some €60 million can be accounted for in terms of targeted savings.

There appear to be opportunities for savings across the system. For example, I spoke with a senior consultant recently who prescribes very expensive drugs and who produced a paper stating that he could change his way of working and save approximately €5 million on the prescribing that is being done but that he could not get anyone from the Department or the HSE to meet him and take it seriously. I see examples of savings across the system all the time. I also see examples of process improvements that would ultimately lead to savings. For example, clinicians at Tallaght Hospital wanted to introduce a triage room. Such rooms are part of standard practice in emergency medicine. It took five years to get the room commissioned, which gives rise to issues regarding patient safety and also funding. The issues relating to funding arise because there are missed savings in such circumstances. What is being done to try to tap into the efforts of administrators, doctors, nurses, porters and managers? The staff at most hospitals - on wards and in emergency departments - I visit can literally point to where cost savings can be made but they state that nobody is listening and they cannot get anything through. What is being done to try to change that?