Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am accountable to the House for the decisions I have made during my time as Minister for Health. That is what I was endeavouring to do in my initial response to the question, by outlining my philosophy and principal objective in how I intend to populate the hospital group boards which are not currently populated. I assure the House that nobody will sit on a hospital group board or be appointed by me to such a board who has not come through the public appointments system. That is important.

However, the Deputy raises a valid point relating to the appointment of senior hospital positions. The Deputy is probably aware of the history of this. There was a Government decision on 14 May 2013 on the reorganisation of public hospitals into hospital groups. Sanction of that was conveyed to the HSE in July 2013. There was an urgent request from the HSE in August 2014 to reassign senior managers from within the health service to the hospital group CEO posts. That was done on the grounds of exceptional circumstances and with the agreement of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It was also done on the basis that these proposals would not result in any additional senior posts within the health service, considering the financial situation of the country. The Department also agreed that the individuals would be assigned to these posts for a period of up to 24 months in the first instance, so this issue will arise again and it will be up to me to develop policy for how we wish to move forward.

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