Mr. Bernard Gloster:

In terms of long-term projects they certainly will cause pressure and slowdown. I also had applications yesterday for 50 or 60 replacement posts and I approved approximately 15 of them. I discern what is immediately impacting front-line services and what is not. In longer term developments we also have to look at how we use the management administration capacity that we have. We have a management administration capacity in the organisation of 24,000 people. This is a significant number. We are in the middle of changing the HSE nationally and regionally. There are opportunities in this to utilise, redeploy and use skills in different ways. It is a mix of all of these. It is difficult and I would not shy away from it. We had industrial action stood down at the last minute because of it and that has not gone away. It is a difficult and challenging environment. The management administration capacity of the health service is unrecognisable from what it was five years ago. They are all very valuable and serious people making a contribution but there does come a point when we have to measure how much more of this we can continue to do, as opposed to other opportunities and new ways of working.