James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 6, line 30, to delete "greater than 6" and substitute "greater than 8".

Currently, the Bill provides that the directorate, which will be the governing body for the HSE, will consist of the director general and not more than six other members, who are referred to in the Bill as "appointed directors". Only HSE employees at the grade of national director or no less senior grade will be eligible to be appointed as directors. The decision to include employees in no less senior grades was the result of a Committee Stage amendment I introduced. Amendment No. 3 will give practical effect to that provision by making provision in respect of the size of the directorate. The HSE has recently appointed people to head up key service areas, including a national director of mental health, a national director of hospitals, a national director of primary care, a national director of social care and a national director of health and well-being. I have always made it clear that my intention is that employees in charge of key service areas will be members of the directorate. It is also my intention that the person heading child and family services will be a member of the directorate pending the introduction of the new child and family support agency. As I stated on Committee Stage, however, the governing body of the HSE should have scope to encompass other very significant people in the HSE. I propose amendment No. 3, therefore, to increase the maximum number of appointed directors from six to eight. This will allow relevant service heads and a small number of other key senior employees such as the chief operations officer and the chief financial officer to form the governing body of the HSE. I assure Deputies that there will be no additional cost associated with the making of this amendment.

Having set out my reasons for increasing the maximum size of the directorate, I turn to amendment No. 4, proposed by Deputy Ó Caoláin, which is grouped with amendment No. 3. However, I do not want to second-guess what the Deputy may say. While amendment No. 4 relates to the composition of the directorate also, its effect would be to have no requirement that members of the directorate be drawn from among employees in senior management positions in the HSE and no requirement that the directorate need necessarily have any HSE employee on it. This would not fit with one of the central policy objectives underpinning the Bill, which is to abolish the board structure of the HSE, the members of which are traditionally drawn from outside persons, and replace it with a directorate the members of which come from senior management in the executive. The directorate structure reflects the need for greater operational management focus on the key delivery of services and greater transparency in the funding of service delivery and accountability. Deputy Ó Caoláin's amendment envisages outside persons being appointed to the directorate, which is consistent with a board structure rather than a directorate model. I hope the Deputy understands why I do not propose to accept the amendment.

However, I make clear that the intention is that appointed directors are drawn from HSE employees irrespective of when the person was appointed to his or her grade. Separate from the Bill, but as part of the overall policy underpinning it, new senior HSE posts were approved. A Public Appointments Service competition was held to fill the new posts. The director general designate of the HSE announced on 17 May 2013 that the Public Appointments Service had concluded a recruitment process on behalf of the HSE for five new national directors and a chief financial officer. It is my intention that persons recruited under the competition will be appointed to the directorate.

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