Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I am seeing the structures changing. I would have always dealt with the head of older persons, the head of mental health and the head of disabilities across each area. They have changed now already. There is a new integrated healthcare area, IHA. Our area, which was CHO 5 and CHO 6 combined, is now called Dublin and South East. There are now three IHAs there and they have broken up the counties between them. I have seen it from dealing with something in my own area regarding mental health and a package that needed to be signed off, that it is the regional executive officer, Martina Queally in this case, who is making that final decision when there is significant funding there. It is already starting to roll out.

My understanding is that the role of chief officer will be gone very shortly as well. They will be doing another role within the pyramid structures. It is actually happening on the ground. There is a bit of getting used to the changes. From my perspective as Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, it is important to make sure mental health does not get kind of sidelined. It is important that it is front and centre within the structures. I have had that conversation with Bernard Gloster, and I will meet the various regional executive officers to have that conversation. One of the challenges is that when funding is specifically ring-fenced, such as for mental health posts, for example, there has to be discretion, but we also want to make sure that those posts are hard won at budget are allocated down to the six RHOs.