Mr. Bernard Gloster:

For significant capital expenditure and capital projects, there are two component parts; there is the part that can be controlled within the HSE and there is the part that is external. The latter is the capital plan, which is the determination of the Government, the Minister and the Department of Health. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has a significant role in the governance of significant expenditure and the flow thereof. Only yesterday, I met members of the executive management team of the HSE and have asked for a specific view on this. My view is to identify the processes within the HSE either from the time of initiating a concept or carrying out an approved project that is funded and to determine what is the best we can do to reduce the timeline of those processes. There are steps we can take to reduce those timelines but there will still be many other factors in the approval process. There are significant balancing issues with major capital expenditure and development in Irish public services in general because of the fear of expenditure going out of control or timelines being missed and so on, and those are legitimate fears. I need to see what are the steps within the HSE and how many of those we can reduce. That might cause pressure for other parts of the civil and public service but I can only control the bit that is within my gift. There are certainly steps we can take to improve that.