Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In his opening remarks, the Minister said we hopefully would look back on this as a positive decision in time to come when we can turn around our health service. I move on to accountability and responsibility. The Minister has mentioned a few times that at the end of the day, the Secretary General is the Accounting Officer and has legal responsibilities. Looking at the structure within the Department and the HSE, one sees that the chief executive of the HSE is answerable to the board and the board is answerable to the Minister. What role does the Secretary General have in the day-to-day operation? How does he or she influence the day-to-day operation in terms of delivery of services and control of budgets if they are not directly within his or her control? Perhaps the Minister can explain the legal responsibility he refers to in relation to the Secretary General for budgets and achieving targets. What does that mean? We have all seen that there does not seem to be accountability for anything in the public sector, whether we are delivering services or budgets on time or not. What does it mean to a layperson if the Secretary General is the Accounting Officer and has legal responsibility for that Department?