Health Service Executive

The Health Service Executive (HSE), or Feidhmeannacht na Serbhíse Sláinte (FSS) in Irish, is responsible for the provision of healthcare with public funds in the Republic of Ireland. The Executive was established by the Health Act, 2004 and came into official operation on January 1, 2005; it is currently in a transition phase from the previous Health Board system that operated since 1970. The Minister for Health and Children has overall responsibility for the Executive in Government.

HSE Regions
As part of the transition from the 1970 Health Board structures the health board functional areas from that system remained in place and are referred to as the HSE Regions. There are eight HSE Regions, which are also based on administrative counties, and do not incorporate the changes which occurred in the Eastern Health Board area in 1999.

The HSE Regions are as follows:


 * 1) North Western: counties of Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo
 * 2) North Eastern: counties of Cavan, Louth, Meath and Monaghan
 * 3) Western: City of Galway and counties of Galway, Mayo, Roscommon
 * 4) Midland: counties of Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath
 * 5) Eastern: City of Dublin and the counties of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal, Kildare, South Dublin and Wicklow
 * 6) South Eastern: City of Waterford and counties Carlow, Kilkenny, South Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford
 * 7) South: City of Cork and counties of Cork, Kerry
 * 8) Mid-Western: City of Limerick and counties of Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary

This split should not be confused with the four European Parliament Constituencies or the eight NUTS Regions, both of which are also based on multiples of the counties. In the case of the NUTS regions, however, some regions are the same as above.

Possible replacement
It was reported by the Sunday Business Post in February 2006 that the regions will be replaced by "administrative areas" and that their will be four such administrative areas which will be formed primarily from the regions. For the most part regions will be wholly integrated into an administrative area except in Dublin where the 1999 area health board boundaries will be used when forming administrative areas. The Executive has yet to publicly confirm this plan.

Board of directors

 * Liam Downey, Chairman - retired chief executive of Becton Dickinson in Ireland
 * Donal de Buitleir - general manager, AIB Bank
 * P Anne Scott - Professor and Head of School of Nursing, Dublin City University
 * Michael McLoone - County Manager Donegal County Council
 * Niamh Brennan - Professor of Management University College Dublin
 * Michael Murphy - Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Health University College Cork
 * P J Fitzpatrick - Chief Executive, Courts Service
 * John Murray - Professor of Business Studies Trinity College, Dublin
 * Maureen Gaffney - Chairperson, National Economic and Social Forum
 * Eugene McCague - Solicitor
 * Joe Macri - Chief Executive, Microsoft Ireland

The Chief executive officer is Professor Brendan Drumm.