Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 584: To ask the Minister for Health if an outside agency will be retained to supplement public service staffing levels at the Primary Care Reimbursement Service in Finglas, Dublin 11, following the centralisation of the processing of all medical card and general practitioner visit card applications and renewals on 1 July; the number of agency staff that will be retained; and the length of time they will be retained. [18520/11]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 585: To ask the Minister for Health the number of Health Service Executive staff currently working in the Primary Care Reimbursement Service outside of Dublin that have been redeployed to the PCRS in Finglas, Dublin 11. [18521/11]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 584 and 585 together.

The Health Service Executive has centralised the processing of all new medical card applications and renewals at the Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS) in Finglas, Dublin with effect from 1st July.

About 90 staff have moved to the PCRS to cope with the increased workload and the HSE is seeking redeployment, under the terms of the Public Service Agreement, to increase this number to 150. I have raised this issue directly with the PCRS and I am advised that they hope to have the full complement of staff in place within the next six to eight weeks. The previous system of locally based processing required some 400 staff and the balance will be freed up for redeployment to key front-line services around the country.

Pending the completion of the ongoing redeployment process, the HSE intends to re-assign staff from other duties within the PCRS as required in order to deal with medical card applications and renewals. If these internal arrangements prove inadequate, the HSE has an arrangement in place to avail of the services of a company with which it has a contract to provide customer support services. The number of outside staff required will become clear as the project progresses over the coming weeks, with the ability to expand and reduce the number as necessary to ensure continuity of service delivery.

During and after this changeover period, every effort will be made to ensure that the system is responsive to queries from the public and public representatives.