Mr. Robert Watt:

The Chairman raised many issues. Many of them are political issues that are not for me to comment on. I have given my views on some of those matters already. I gave my views on broadband, which is my job. It is ultimately for the Government to decide how to proceed.

Issues arise in respect of the HSE. Without getting into the issues of health delivery and health politics, which are not my area, I believe there is an enormous difference between a public system and a private system. A public system has a vast array of different operations and services whereas a private system will provide a subset of those services. My view is that the problem we have in the health system is that there is an uneasy mix of public and private. The way they interact is the problem. Sláintecare, the policy the Minister set out, which will be very difficult to implement, is the approach to try to unravel some of the strands. The Chairman and I have spoken about this at various fora. I have set out many the changes made and measures we have introduced. We have made great progress on many aspects of public administration but, of course, there are things we can do better.

With regard to the management of capital projects and procurement, we have taken a number of steps. I have alluded to some of them. On another day, we might be able to talk in more detail about what we are trying to do. There is an enormous difference between one-off, large bespoke projects and the sorts of routine projects we do. Somebody mentioned to me the example of the Luas being built in Dublin. There were overruns and delays when the first two lines were being built. The final Luas line, connecting the green and red lines, was on time and on budget because the contractors and the State learned how to avoid mistakes. We had great difficulty building the first motorways. Back in the 1990s, there were overruns. We did not have fixed-lump-sum contracts then; there were price-variation contracts and it was a disaster. We eventually got it right. We can learn. With regard to the wider issues concerning the HSE, Mr. Paul Reid has a very effective leadership team. We need to see what the HSE does.

I talked earlier about the indicators of people's perceptions of the Civil Service. A few weeks ago, the OECD published Government at a Glance, which is a fantastic document. Every Irish public service we do well is above average. Health is the one area where the outcomes, relative to expenditure, are below the OECD average. Nobody in the system doubts that there is an ongoing challenge in that regard.