Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I strongly stand by the decision to make the CEO of the HSE the Accounting Officer. I know of no good management system where a person is responsible for the delivery of services but is not accountable for the money involved. I do not believe that could lead to good management practice. I believe it is appropriate that the HSE should use expertise from outside the health service to run its estates function, as it recently did. The person appointed, Mr. Brian Gilroy, comes with a great deal of experience of projects in other sectors and I believe there will be a huge transformation in the manner in which this new national organisation sets about putting in place its capital programme.

Under the old health board regime the approach was to spend money no matter what. Money is allocated for particular projects and it is the duty of the HSE to ensure it is spent on those projects rather than spent merely for the sake of spending it. I strongly support this policy and I believe, though there will always be capital requirements, Ireland, together with Norway, at 5% has the highest percentage of capital spending on health of any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. I believe this is an appropriate level of investment.

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