Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

I will answer that. It depends on what the increase is for. If it is an increase for pay awards, obviously we will look at the individual staff and what each staff has. When we are planning, we do look at up-to-date censuses. More and more one will find individual increases across different care groups are seeking to take account of the historical differences in demographics. Where we are moving to in the medium to long term is a more population-based resource allocation, so that we try over time, as we add extra resource into the system for developments, to even out those regional disparities across different care groups and across different counties.

One will find that some parts of the country are higher than others in one care group, and lower in another because they may have, in the past, prioritised certain types of service. As much as possible, we will be asking the local areas, and in particular each of the new regions, to resolve those issues internally across their region. They are big enough, at six, to do that. Over time, Government, the Department and the HSE will seek to level the playing pitch with additional new money.