Ms Aisling Heffernan:

I am aware that the HSE centre and the Minister for Health are working towards a multi-annual budget across the entirety of the health service. They are working with the Department of public expenditure on that. I agree that would really help from a strategic perspective. The devolving of budgets to the regions and our closer working relationships with the hospitals will improve the process and inform budgetary requirements on an earlier basis, moving forward.

On the service level arrangement, the funding gap is the primary issue. The service level arrangement covers the entire balanced scorecard, looking at our people, access and quality. We have performance meetings every month with the site, at which we look at the full range of parameters with it.