Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The organisation has to be put into effect before deciding the management structure that is required, the individuals or whatever. The idea is to have fewer layers of bureaucracy.

The Deputy asked me about regional structures. We have regional structures currently. We have eight network managers for hospitals and four such persons for community continuing care. In the first instance they will be brought together because it does not make sense to have them separate. We want to have consultation with stakeholders and the HSE should have consultation. It is the employer, either directly or indirectly, of 130,000 people. It wants to and should have consultation with stakeholders, community groups and others. What the shape of those operational units will be — whether there will be six or eight — is not yet determined. It is around that ballpark figure on which they are having discussions. The first measure taken today was that the structure agreed by the board and supported by me, my Department and the Government was put forward to the IMPACT union and other unions today. That is the first step because, obviously, it affects many people who work in the organisation.

I was asked about a voluntary redundancy programme. I remain committed to a redundancy programme, once we know what we want to do by way of numbers and what is required to do the job. In particular, we do not want to lose——

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