Results 30,421-30,440 of 34,778 for speaker:Seán Fleming
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Mr. O'Brien might break it down between the figure spent on the site at which we are no longer looking and costs already incurred in regard to the new proposal. I refer to the issue of patient transport. Coming from the midlands, I am conscious that a number of people must be transported from midland hospitals and other hospitals to Dublin. Some of the vehicles used are not...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: No, we will get to that in a moment. I want to know the process. I am not interested in the reductions yet. The IMF, European Commission and the European Central Bank have adjudicated, if adjudication was needed, that we are not getting proper value for money. The process that has led us to the deals we are getting is not satisfactory from the taxpayer's point of view. Those bodies have...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: The Department of Health leads the negotiations. Would the Assistant Secretary General have joined the Civil Service as an executive officer and worked his way up to Assistant Secretary General, and not through commercial experience? I do not need the person's name. This is not personal. From my point of view, this is going from bad to worse. We have a career civil servant negotiating a...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: They have not done a good job. The IMF does not think so.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: I will move on. I was trying to establish the process of who talks to whom in the companies. We have established that the HSE does not even talk to the suppliers directly, but through an intermediary. Does anybody from the Government's new procurement office in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform lead these talks? What is that office's role? The Minister for Public...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Okay. There is legislation going through the Dáil on the pricing of supplies of medicines. It is nearly completed. If this legislation is passed, has the HSE calculated how much savings there will be? The Oireachtas is anxious to pass this legislation as it will allow the HSE to secure savings in its drugs and medicines bill. Before the legislation was drafted I am sure somebody...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Can Mr. O'Brien give us a sample of the scenarios the HSE presented about the savings in terms of percentages, money or specific products? The Department handles the policy in the legislation.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: If the HSE was successful in moving to as many of these as possible, what would be the best case scenario of the savings this legislation could help it to achieve?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: The legislation has been in the Oireachtas for 12 months. If there are serious savings to be made for the taxpayer, it is in everybody's interest that the legislation is finalised as quickly as possible. I will move to the issue of waiting times for first appointments for outpatients. There are 388,000 people waiting for such appointments. Is that up or down or a good figure? It is a...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: That is the average. This figure sounds a better figure as it is less than three months. I know some people will be waiting 12 months. What is the average for the system per annum?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: The 380,000 represents a couple of months, although I know that is not how it works.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Now that this list is available, when does the HSE expect to have a programme in place so it will know how many people are waiting over a certain period?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: I will move to a different topic. It is an unusual one, but I picked it up in Appendix 3 on page 195, the last page of the accounts. It is a figure of €18,262,000 for security. I understand why one needs security in hospitals as there can be difficult, troublesome and violent patients and patients who need to be separated. I am sure the gardaí need to be called on occasion....
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: I thank the witnesses for coming today. There are a couple of specific topics I wish to deal with, with one having been discussed already. The drugs and medicines bills is one of the biggest items of expenditure. The EU and IMF, as part of the troika, is looking to examine this issue, and the use of generics, because the HSE is spending 17% of its budget on medicines, which is double the...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Will Ms McGuinness clarify that?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: With whom do they meet?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: I will start with the basics. The HSE representatives do not meet with people from the manufacturers of drugs but rather the industry puts up a front. It pays for an association to speak to the HSE. Are there separate discussions? I am worried that if the big manufacturers have a cosy committee representing it, they will only seek to protect the cartel. Does the HSE and Department not...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: Why is there not direct discussion with companies?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011 (25 Apr 2013) Seán Fleming: We would already be dealing with an intermediary. It is the start of the problem. We are now beginning to establish that the Department of Health and HSE does not negotiate and talk turkey on a one-to-one basis with individual companies. We are operating through a federation or committee that the manufacturers have put together to speak to representatives. It will hold an industry line....
- Public Sector Pay and Conditions: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (24 Apr 2013)
Seán Fleming: I welcome the opportunity to conclude this debate. I will start by reiterating what is contained in the motion. It recognises the huge sacrifices made by public sector employees and pensioners in recent years; the ongoing savings being delivered by the current Croke Park agreement; the significant benefit to the economy and society that the absence of industrial action in the public sector...