THE GOVERNMENT’S plans for how the health service will be run following the abolition of the Health Service Executive should be known by next June, Minister for Health James Reilly has said.
Last week he told the Dáil that the interim board appointed last May, composed mainly of senior civil servants in the Department of Health and top-level HSE officials, would be scrapped by the end of the year.
The Minister set up the interim board after he, in effect, removed the board of the HSE appointed by his predecessor Mary Harney shortly after he took up office.
“There will be a new plan for the supra-structure of the HSE until we come to the final solution later next year, hopefully by June,” he said. The move to abolish the interim HSE board will require the introduction of new legislation by the Department of Health.
A spokesman for the Minister said it was hoped there would be full clarity on what follows the HSE by next summer. The programme for government agreed between Fine Gael and Labour following the general election last February states that the HSE will “cease to exist over time”.
In a separate written answer last week to a parliamentary question set down by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, the Minister indicated that the HSE would be abolished on a phased basis.
“The programme for government commits to the HSE ceasing to exist over time. This will require detailed planning and legislation to abolish the HSE is likely to be brought forward on a sequential basis, as part of the overall reform programme, with the executive’s functions transferring elsewhere or being taken over by the Universal Health Insurance system.
“In the meantime, however, I intend to bring legislative proposals to Government to abolish the board structure in the Health Service Executive under the Health Act 2004 . . .” the Minister said in his answer.
