Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 219: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the progress that has been made in moving to an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., five days over seven work pattern as provided for in the Croke Park agreement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41124/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 (the "Croke Park Agreement") provides a framework for public service management and staff to work together to deliver an ongoing reduction in the cost of delivery of public services, while maintaining and improving the quality of services delivered to the public, in return for commitments on pay and security of employment for public servants. The Implementation Body has been established to drive the implementation of the Agreement across all sectors and ensure that early, robust and verifiable reforms are secured, which lead to sustainable and verifiable savings in the cost of public service delivery.

Against the background of reduced budgets and staffing resources in the health sector, the challenge for the Health Sector will be to not only to maintain the level, quality and safety of services, but to expand the range of services that can be easily accessed by patients and clients in their own communities. This will require changes in work practices and attendance patterns, as well as in staffing ratios and rostering arrangements in order to increase efficiency, and to achieve significant savings in non-pay fixed costs such as overtime, premium payments and agency spend.

The Agreement provides for a wide range of measures to bring these changes about, including the introduction of an extended working day covering the period 8am to 8pm and the introduction of new arrangements to support the delivery of services over an extended period, up to and including 24/7 for all grades in service locations, where this is identified as needed to meet service requirements (2.9.12 and 2.9.13 of the Agreement). There is also detailed consultation and adjudication processes to be followed to support the successful implementation of these measures, which are to be completed within very tight timeframes. It should be noted that with effect from 16 December 2008, all new employees of the HSE and HSE funded agencies are already to liable to work rosters necessary to deliver extended services beyond Monday to Friday, including weekends, where flexibility is required to address real service demands. New employees include existing staff appointed to promotional posts and staff on renewed temporary contracts.

Each sector was requested by the Implementation Body to provide an action plan as to how proposed changes were to be implemented in their respective sector. My Department worked closely with the HSE to develop the action plan for implementation of the Agreement across the health sector. The Health Sector Action Plan is available to view on my Department's website, www.dohc.ie.

The Action Plan recognises that the Public Service Agreement enables the Health Sector to protect services to patients/users, in as far as is possible, within the context of whatever expenditure decisions are made by Government for 2011 and subsequent years. The Plan also takes account of the fact that the implementation of reform is a dynamic process, and one which will allow identification of changes which may be required in the way services are delivered and the associated changes in work practices, on an ongoing basis.

The Implementation Body also established the Health Sector Implementation Body (HSIB), a joint union/management group with an independent Chair, Mr. Pat Harvey. The HSIB is responsible for driving the implementation of the Action Plan and will be required to report on progress to the Implementation Body. The HSIB has met three times to date, with further meetings scheduled later this month and again in December. Local structures are also being put in place at regional level across the HSE, which will mirror those of the Health Sector Implementation Body.

Question No. 220 answered with Question No. 218.