Ms Laverne McGuinness:

I refer to the key question of who is responsible and accountable. Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the group CEO, the hospital CEO or the regional director of operations. Even though the clinical director plays an important role in that, the ultimate accountability rests with them. They are very much aware of what is required now in this regard.

There is not a monetary sanction. We will deal with this through the arrangements and the individual meetings with them but we hope not to be in that position. However, we will have to take that in the context of the soon to be published smaller hospitals framework and the reconfiguration of hospitals.

Deputy Regina Doherty asked about the amount we pay in overtime, particularly for unrostered overtime. The total time we paid to NCHDs in 2012 for overtime, which is not broken down between rostered and unrostered, was €165 million. We are putting in place a national system and we are going to procurement for it. Some hospitals have individual systems that cater for the categorisation between rostered and unrostered. We do not have those figures broken down nationally.