A chartered accountant, Mr Kevin Kelly, has been appointed chairman of a national steering committee to oversee the health reform programme.
Mr Kelly, who is also the executive chairman of the board of the Interim Health Service Executive, will head a nine-strong committee that also includes Mr David Hanly, author of the controversial report on acute hospitals.
Announcing the line-up, the Minister for Health said the steering group would oversee the different strands of the health reform programme, which was "unprecedented in its scale, breadth and complexity".
Mr Martin added that "quite deliberately" the composition of the committee had been tightly focused on the main tasks to be achieved, especially during 2004.
He identified the four main strands of activity as the setting up of the Health Service Executive, under Mr Kelly; the work of Mr Hanly's Acute Hospitals Review Group; the legislative and industrial relations aspects of the reform programme; and the ongoing management of the health system.
A former managing director of of the AIB, now in his 60s, Mr Kelly's CV also includes overseeing the rescue of the PMPA insurance company in the late 1980s.The other members of the steering committee are:
Mr David Hanly, chairman of the Acute Hospitals Review Group; Mr Michael Kelly, secretary general, Department of Health and Children; Mr Dermot McCarthy, secretary general, Department of the Taoiseach; Mr David Doyle, second secretary general, public expenditure, Department of Finance; Mr Denis Doherty, chairman, Health Boards Executive; Mr Seán Hurley, chief executive officer, Southern Health Board; Mr Michael Dempsey, managing director, Bristol-Myers Squibb; Ms Maura McGrath, management consultant, McGrath Associates.