David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect, that is different to an entity, forum, task force, or whatever one wants to call it, that includes representatives of staff, including consultants, doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers and others who work on the front line of healthcare, on the one hand, and patient advocacy groups on the other. We have paid lip service to the emergency department task force in recent times. We should not do that. The two groups should not be in competition. They can do different things. I imagine the crisis management team is more about making sure that "operational grip", which is a phrase that has been used several times, is in place in as many hospitals as possible and ensuring we are deploying additional escalation measures and so on. That is fine because those are management issues. I get that. However, there is also a role for the task force and I would argue we have not given the task force its place this year, which is a mistake. Was the winter plan signed off by the HSE board?