This change was recommended by the all-party committee that published Sláintecare, the blueprint for the future of the health service. It is also said to be a priority for the new HSE chief executive, Paul Reid.

This is not the first time we have been told about milestones in the provision of healthcare in Ireland. Before the HSE came into being, the health system was operated by 11 autonomous health boards, which were deemed by the government of the time to be inefficient and ineffective.

In 2003, the then health minister, Micheál Martin, published the report of the Brennan Commission, which recommended the abolition of the boards and their replacement with a single, national entity, charged with managing and delivering the health service.

The establishment of the HSE represented one of the biggest restructurings of any public service since the foundation of the State. It was meant to signal improved transparency, less bureaucracy, and a more streamlined service.

It was supposed to offer a seamless service for patients from GPs, hospitals, and community care.

Such aspirations were noble but delivery was not forthcoming.

It was clear from the start that there were fundamental structural deficencies. Hospital doctors, nurses, and service managers, who previously had autonomy over local decisions, had to get clearance from managers in Dublin.

Frontline staff began to complain of increased bureaucracy and of difficulty getting decisions made for even minor procedures.

There were other problems, as well, which should have been flagged. The HSE’s much-touted computer personnel and payroll system was abandoned as ineffective, despite the fact that its cost had risen from €9m to over €200m.

In 2007, Martin’s successor, Mary Harney, was forced to defend the HSE against attacks from Fine Gael, which was then in opposition, saying many public hospitals were “a hive of private enterprise” and that had to change. She was right, but since then things haven’t changed or, at least, not enough.

Another milestone for the health service came in the form of the setting-up of hospital groups in 2011 — a halfway house between health boards and a fully centralised system. With this new plan, we are back to the future, with six regional health structures.

Back in 2001, the Primary Care Strategy, which foreshadowed the creation of the HSE, promised that within three years, “no public patient will wait longer than three months for treatment, following referral from an out-patient department”.

Eighteen years on, the situation has gone from bad to abysmal. For the restructuring to succeed, the mistakes made in the establishment of the HSE must not be repeated.