Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 31: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if her Department will complete an efficiency review and audit of all State agencies and bodies under the responsibility of her Department; if she has plans to merge or abolish any State agencies or bodies; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20594/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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In the context of his most recent Budget Speech, the then Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Mr. Brian Cowen, T.D., announced an Efficiency Review, under which all Departments were required to examine all administrative spending under their, or their State bodies', aegis. The identification of inefficiencies arising from the multiplicity of Boards and Agencies was identified as relevant in this context. The recent OECD Review of the Irish Public Service ("Towards an Integrated Public Service") also raises a number of issues around the structure and governance of agencies. Accordingly, my Department has been considering the position of agencies within its aegis.

Agencies (other than the HSE and HIQA) falling within my Department's aegis have functions ranging across advice, programme implementation and regulation. They are predominantly small in terms of organisational size and expenditure, and a number are self-funding. A comprehensive independent review of health organisations (Audit of Structures and Functions in the Health System) was published in 2003. Considerable rationalisation has already taken place under the 2004 and 2007 Health Acts, and other changes are already planned, as follows:

The National Cancer Screening Service Board and the National Cancer Registry are to be subsumed into the HSE as part of the Cancer Control Programme;

The National Council for the Ageing and older People is to be mainstreamed into the newly established Office for Older People;

the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, provides for the dissolution of the Post Graduate Medical & Dental Board and the streamlining of the Board's functions to the HSE, Medical/Dental Councils, as appropriate;

the functions of the National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery are to be subsumed by An Bord Altranais and the HSE once the proposed new Nursing and Midwifery Bill is passed; and

the National Social Work Qualification Board is due to be streamlined into the National Council for Health and Social Care Professions in the next year or so.

The potential for further streamlining and/or rationalisation is being considered in the context of the Efficiency Review referred to above, and will also arise in the context of our response to the OECD Review.

Efficiencies are already being implemented by agencies within the health sector in the areas of procurement, business processes, and outsourcing. Additional benefits might also accrue from sharing of functions such as payroll, finance, ICT, pensions, legal services, and HR, and my Department is considering how the necessary co-ordination might be applied to allow such possibilities to be exploited.