Ms Linda Kelly:

No. Strategic planning and business improvement is the budget line heading. That is just a general term for every piece of work that these private, for-profit consultancy firms are involved in. It stretches way beyond the pay and numbers strategy, I would say. It is also around looking at various productivity measures and efficiencies. We have no sense of the scope of it other than what we understand ourselves from where we know they are engaged. In all sectors of the HSE, whether community or acute, they are involved in making key decisions about service. They are not employed by the health service but they are getting huge contracts.