The Hanly taskforce

The chairman of the Hanly taskforce is a retired businessman with significant experience in the area of manpower and recruitment.

Mr David Hanly (59), from Raheny, Dublin, was chief executive of Parc, a former subsidiary of Aer Lingus, between 1975 and 1998.

Parc is an international provider of specialist personnel solutions to the aviation, engineering and telecoms sectors. It also sources staff for the finance sector in Ireland.

Between 1989 and 1992, Mr Hanly was chairman of Comhairle na nOspidéal, a body which regulates consultant posts and advises the Minister for Health on hospital services.

Between 1999 and 2001, he chaired a national steering group on the working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors. Its conclusions formed a key foundation stone for yesterday's report into medical staffing and reform of acute hospitals.

He is currently the chairperson of an independent inquiry into the death of Roisín Ruddle, the 2-year-old Limerick girl who died within hours of her heart surgery being cancelled at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin.

The task force, which resulted in the Hanly report, officially known as the National Task Force on Medical Staffing, was established in February 2002 by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin.

The body has some 50 members from a wide variety of backgrounds, including nurses, consultants, health board representatives and officials from the Department of Health.

A smaller working group, chaired by Mr Hanly, helped to finalise much of the report.

This included: Dr Cillian Twomey, Consultant Physician in Geriatric Medicine in Cork University Hospital; Dr Peter Kelly, a consultant histopathologist in the Dublin's Mater Hospital; Dr Mary Hynes, regional manager, acute services, Western Health Board; Dr Trevor Duffy, specialist registrar, rheumatology, St Vincent's University Hospital; and Prof Gerry Loftus, consultant paediatrician, University College Hospital, Galway. In the report, published yesterday, Mr Hanly said the concern of the task force was to propose solutions that would be in the best interests of patients, and that would offer a high quality of service to all. "Inevitably a report of this kind involves difficult choices, a need for objectivity and a willingness to put individual agendas to one side," he said.

"I am grateful to the Task Force members for approaching the work in this spirit."