Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to say that section 31 deals with this issue. The service plan must be prepared in the formal manner as directed by the Minister. It must contain estimates of the number of employees of the executive for the period and the services to which the plan relates. Therefore, this information about employees will be provided in the service plan, which is the appropriate place for it. Those plans are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The amendment seeks to go further in establishing an obligation on the executive to furnish this information to the Houses of the Oireachtas within 90 days of its establishment. However, the general requirement in section 31 meets the broad thrust of what Senator Browne's amendment requires.

Senator Paddy Burke raised the issue of the three-month period, which is a transitional matter. For the first three months of next year the executive will be free to recruit, as the Senator stated. We would not have non-consultant hospital doctors or nurses recruited at all if we did not have the proviso that for the first three months of next year, the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004 will not apply to the executive. That is a purely finite arrangement, however. As and from March 2005, the Act to which the Senator referred will apply to the health service executive. It would not be possible to recruit nurses and non-consultant hospital doctors in the first three months of next year under that legislation.