Each hospital funded by the Health Service Executive is required to deliver services within the financial allocation provided. The HSE is involved in ongoing discussions with hospital management regarding its 2008 financial allocation and Service Plan. The Hospital has an overrun of €10 million from last year, and a projected overrun of €14 million this year. The priority of the HSE and hospital management is to ensure that services for children at the hospital are maintained at an optimum level. The initial focus of the discussions on budgetary issues between hospital management and the HSE is on ensuring that all areas of non-pay expenditure are critically examined. In this regard, the hospital made a recent decision to close St. Michael's Ward, which treats a mix of medical patients, a proportion of which are children with cystic fibrosis, at weekends and move to an adjacent ward, St. Joseph's, which also treats a mix of patients including orthopaedic patients. The hospital took the decision to amalgamate these two wards at weekends as the occupancy on both wards was approximately 50% at weekends. As a result, between five and patients, a small proportion of which are cystic fibrosis patients, from St. Michael's Ward are transferred to an adjacent ward at weekends. The infection control team in the hospital is satisfied that there is no additional risk to children as a result of this move. The same standard of care is being delivered to these children. There is no change in the specialised doctors and nurses and medical team caring for the patients who are transferred. On transfer, the children with cystic fibrosis are nursed in single rooms. The medical care delivered to the children remains the same. All patients and families are being communicated to by the nursing staff before they are transferred and there is an opportunity for families' concerns to be addressed by the multidisciplinary team. The only change for the children and their families is the location. There is ongoing monitoring and assessment of the situation by the infection control team.