Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Not so long ago, the health boards did not even know what their staff was and could not say how many people worked in them. They did not know the grades or the conditions. An effort has been made, and is partly made for a large amount of the staff. They have to grapple with the complexities concerning the other issues. It is the correct action to get a proper integrated system of ICT in the health system, as we have done in many others. For example, almost a million people are paid every week in the social welfare system, and many other systems are working perfectly. We must do the same in the health system. It costs money to do this and it cannot be done on a shoestring.

They may have been wiser to benchmark every period and to get better advice among other things. At least we are now working to one singular organisation in the HSE, not 11 health boards all over the place. This was the correct action to take.

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