Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 81: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the position regarding the proposed voluntary retirement scheme for Health Service Executive staff; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45645/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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In July of this year the Government decided that a targeted voluntary redundancy/early retirement scheme would be introduced for the HSE. This was reaffirmed by the Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement of 14 October.

More recently, on Wednesday 26 November, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance announced a series of measures aimed at transforming the public service. These included the establishment of a Special Group on Public Sector Numbers and Expenditure. One of the core objectives of this Group will be to identify and report on the scope for reducing public service numbers. The Group is to report regularly to the Minister for Finance with a final report due by end-June 2009.

I have previously made it clear that a managed voluntary redundancy scheme will have an important role to play in helping to improve the delivery of health services to patients by streamlining management and administration within the HSE.

The scheme will focus initially on surplus senior and middle management staff but will, as appropriate, be extended to other staff working in corporate, hospital and community services.

It will, for example, support the development of shared services in functions such as financial, management, payroll, human resources and procurement. It has been estimated by some of the Dublin hospitals that the elimination of duplication in areas such as these would lead to efficiencies of between 10% — 20% in administration costs. The Task Force on the Public Service also highlighted the potential of shared services to improve both value for money and standards of service to the public.

The development of primary care teams provides further opportunities to reduce the levels of administration and to facilitate more clinician to clinician engagement about the care of patients.

Work in ongoing at present within the HSE, my Department and the Department of Finance to examine the parameters of a voluntary redundancy scheme/early retirement scheme. This will include a business case for the numbers and grades to be covered along with an indication of its expected scale and timing.