Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

The advertisement is out and it is due to close on 13 October.

I make the point in the context of the State Claims Agency that we have established a team to work with hospitals that have some of those more catastrophic cases. The evidence is that, thankfully, the incidence of those claims, those tragedies for families, is the same in Ireland as it is in other developed countries. The incidence of claims is not necessarily the issue; rather, it is the operation of the courts process and the legal process. We engage with the State Claims Agency in that regard but there is only so much of that we can influence.

As to the value, obviously the State Claims Agency is, in effect, part of the National Treasury Management Agency and the Department of Finance. The fact that it is not on the balance sheet of the HSE does not mean there is not an awareness all the way up to central government of those amounts, and they are very serious amounts.