The four new regional health authorities recently announced by the former minister for health, Mr Martin, will play a minimal role in the day-to-day running of the health service, according to the chairman of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Mr Kevin Kelly.
Speaking at the Irish Hospital Consultants Association annual meeting in Kilkenny on Saturday, Mr Kelly said there has been a perception that "all that would happen is we would move from the 11 health boards down to four".
Confirming the new authorities will be staffed by only 25-30 people, he said: "There will not be a bureaucracy in the middle of the four regions."
However, he added that one of their roles would be to "make up for the political deficit that is now perceived to exist because the health boards were disbanded at the end of June".
Mr Kelly confirmed that 32 local health offices will provide the backbone of primary and community care services in the community. "We are confident we will go live with these, in embryo, on July 1st... and that there will be minimum disruption for anybody at that point in time."
Referring to the role of the new National Hospitals Office, he said the HSE would set up nine hospital networks at the beginning of next year, "which will mirror very closely what is there at this point in time".
Mr Kelly said that to make any further alterations would pre-empt any changes that might emerge from a second Hanly report.
"But there are a number of areas we do hope to focus on fairly early. The whole question of clinicians in management...the whole issue of clinical governance - I believe there is a lot of work to be done there."
Mr Kelly said Prof Aidan Halligan, the newly-appointed HSE chief executive, had already started work, even though his official commencement date is April 1st next.
He confirmed the new CEO will be interviewing candidates for the second layer of HSE management and that these posts will be filled by the end of the November.
Dr Ailis Quinlan, head of the State Claim's Agency's clinical indemnity scheme, told the meeting there had been 915 claims lodged with it to date, with a quarter of cases involving the speciality of obstetrics and gynaecology.
Surgery accounted for 18 per cent and accident and emergency units contributed 13 per cent of cases.