Mr. David Gunning:

I know they are regular but I am not fully in the loop on that. I know there as a lot of interaction between the Minister and the chair.

In relation to my dealings with Department officials, our official line of reporting is through the HSE to the Department. The Senator will not be in any way surprised to hear that there is wide open communication between the development board, the HSE governance piece and directly with the Department. There is a lot of interaction from that. I have less interaction with the Secretary General but I have quite a bit because I am often invited to the national oversight group meetings that are chaired by the Secretary General. I was at the last one about two months ago. There is, therefore, a huge amount of interaction between us, the Department, the HSE and the Minister.